Love Lies Bleeding
by Seifergrrl
Summary: Chichiri has mourned his friend, Hikou--but what happens when Hikou returns, and it's not for love of Kouran he died for? Yaoi! (Male/Male Homosexual relationship) Violence, angst, and adult situtations. Rewrites OAV2.5. Ch 10 new! :)
1. The Confrontation

Love Lies Bleeding 

**_Memories are just where you laid them,_**

**_dragging_****_ waters 'til the depths give up their dead._**

**_What did you expect to find?_**

**_Was it something you left behind?_**

**_Don't you remember everything I said when I said:_**

****

**_Don't fall away, and leave me to myself._**

**_Don't fall away, and leave love bleeding in my hands,_**

**_in_****_ my hands again;_**

**_leave_****_ love bleeding in my hands._**

**_In my hands,_**

**_love_****_ lies bleeding._**

****

'Hemorrhage (Love Lies Bleeding)',  Fuel 

The sun had set; it cast its bloody fingers over the skyline, gripping at the stained canvas of the sky. Slowly, it pulled away the brightness of the day into the cloak of night. But there was still enough light for the man who stood on one of the hills to see the broken landscape laid out before him. Smashed houses, cracked open like broken eggs, their treasures swept away long ago. Grass had grown up where there had once been roads. When his single eye closed, he could easily see the village how it had been, seven years ago. Her house. His house. 

He stood there a while longer, contemplating his move--walk down, into the village he knew he'd have to go through to get to his destination, or skip over it. A simple spell could clear the river, the dead village, the memories and the pain. It could carry him away from all of it. But wouldn't running away from the ghosts of the village dishonor all those who had died? Especially those he had grievously wronged. He sighed and tossed his head back, looking up at the sky. Bloody colored, another reminder. But, at least the sky was clear. Had it been raining, he didn't think he could survive the heartbreak that would grip him for standing in this desolate place.

But he walked downward, moving through the broken-eggshell homes. Clay walls had long ago crumbled. He went to Her house first, pausing. The cellar door was rotted away, and the stink of death lingered about it. He did not go near it.

He strayed to His house. The village headman had been His father, and so the grandest house of the village was where He had made his home. Perhaps that was why She had turned to him, despite their engagement. Prestige? Comfort? A simple farmer like him could not offer Her these things; their life together would have been simple, to be sure. Simple, but full of love. His love, at least. He turned away again. The monk's old house didn't even stand any longer; looking at the broken remains of the foundations, he could still place in his mind where his brother's and sister's rooms were. Where his father and mother slept. Where the rice fields had once stretched behind them. Where he had run, played, loved, lost.

He turned away again, and trekked onward. He would have to cross the river, to get to the mountains, and the pass he sought, on the other side. There was a certain village on the banks of this self-same river, named for the Rising Dragon, that he had to go to. There lived a woman and man who bore the faces that haunted him. He had a date to keep, and a Godson to see. It finally brought a smile to his lips. Ryuu Houjun. They'd named their first born son for him. A Kutouese couple had named their son for a Konanese shichiseishi. The irony pleased him, in a way. The fact that every time he saw them that he remembered his fiancée and his friend did not. But still; they were his friends. Some of the last he could claim. And so, to get to them, this river would have to be crossed.

And so, he pressed onwards. The jangle of his golden gohei was the only sound in this otherwise silent landscape; no bird sang, no cricket chirped, and the wind was silent. It was as if nature itself stood still in respect for his grief, for the pain this place inspired. He passed through a copse of trees, and willed his gaze to remain forward. He would not look over. He would not see them there, in a lover's embrace. He would keep walking. He would not stop until he was at the river. He passed on, without a look back—though he could almost hear their hushed breath, the rustle of cloth. How far would it have gone, had he not been there? How often did they steal away like that? He tried not to contemplate it, and instead, continued through.

But when he came to the river, he stopped. He swallowed the lump that had suddenly formed in his throat, and he stared at the depths; the river was not swollen. It was calm. It shouldn't hurt so much to look at it! It shouldn't bring him to his knees, and steal his breath. But it did. There he was, crushed by the weight of memory. His hands wrapped around his shakujo, using it to support his weight, as he kneeled there, head bowed. "Suzaku," he breathed, his throat abruptly raw. Why? Why after so long, did it hurt as if it had been yesterday? Why could he still feel the blood and water on his face?

His legs would not move. He took a moment to regain himself, and then reached up and tore his mask away. It was an affront to the spirits here. But the tears gathered in his eye blinded him to the peculiarity of two slithering streams, slinking _up_ from the river and around him as if he were merely a stone in their path. Rubbing at his eye, he did not notice them converge, a pool of rippling river water with a mind of its own. He was too busy remembering. Too engrossed in voices only he could hear.

His own voice, raised in anguish, tormented. He loved her! He trusted them! They betrayed him! How could they betray him?  

Her voice, over and over, choked with sorrow. She cannot marry him. She cannot marry him. She cannot marry him.

The other never spoke. Eyes downcast in sullen silence, he let her bear the brunt of the then-cuckolded fiancé's anger. 

But as he cleared his eyes he realized that no, the voices were not coming from his mind. They ran in perfect time with them, but they were from an outside source. Before him, mist rose up from the river, swirling into a circular disc. It reflected the past to his single eye—displaying with raw honesty the events then. Her back bent, her face hidden as she hid herself from his rage, and could only weep. The other stood alone, his face turned away from this display, this love betrayed. 

With this, he becomes terribly aware that he is not alone. Foolishly, he had let grief blind his senses, turn him away from his normal vigilance! And thus, he turned, quietly, realizing that there was someone here with him. Was it the spirit of the river?

Yes, he realized in horror. It was. And it bore a face he recognized. Clad in rich robes of station; gold, white, and red in elegant harmony: red for luck, gold for imperial station, white for death. As the monk turned his face from the illusion of his past, the noise from it grew louder, demanding that he not forget it, not forget what it was replaying for his benefit. Discordant, like children's hands banging on piano keys, it slammed against the senses, despite the fact that he could not, would not look away from the man he had once called 'brother' before him. He could hear the scream, the roar of the river, his name over the sound of the river, swollen and angry, but he could not give it the attention it demanded. He was instead caught up by a finely chiseled face, darkly framed eyes, midnight hair pulled back into a loose bun. A face he could never have forgotten.

When the illusion it had reached its climax, the scream's crescendo echoing between the two men that stood on the river bank, only then did either find their voices. The face that had only existed in memory smiled, though it was not pleasant. The expression was bitter, smug, and hateful all at once. But then the lips parted, and he spoke two disturbingly simple words, still audible despite the gentleness with which they were spoken: "Hello, Houjun."

The monk felt his heart plummet. He gazed upon his friend, as he was in turn observed. A pair of eyes were curious, but held no small amount of malice. One eye was stunned, horrified, denying the image before him. How could he be here? How could he be here? The answer became obvious as he looked just past the dead man's shoulder, and saw the wings. Hideous things; pale gray and leathery, yet seeming slick and damp, as if the membranes were soaked and watery. They resembled no creature; no bird, nor bug, nor bat had wings like those. Delicate feathers decorated points. They open and folded like a bat's might, they had strange segments, not unlike a dragonfly. He was utterly and wholly unnatural. And the dark magic he wielded only secured the horrible thought in his mind:

Hikou was damned. And Houjun was likely responsible. 

"…Hikou," Houjun tried to speak, but his voice was rapidly failing. How could this have happened? How could his once-friend be standing here like this?

"Why," the demon said, his voice low, carrying the weight of his amusement at Houjun's plight, "You look like you've seen a ghost, Houjun. Don't you have anything to say to me… old friend?" 

Hikou's eyes glittered as he spoke; Houjun could not remember them being so dark, so cold, in either of their lives. But perhaps damnation gave a man more then wings. 

"I would think you'd have something to say, after all this time," the demon pressed on. "Don't I even get a friendly 'hello'?"

Houjun's mouth opened—but all the things that he wanted to say, over the years, jammed up in his throat with near-violent results. How often had he wanted to beg this man's forgiveness? How often had he wanted to clutch him, cry to him that he was sorry, so terribly sorry, that he still loved him and that he didn't mean for things to have happened the way they did? But even as his mouth opened, nothing came out. The years blocked his throat, and it was a miracle he manages to croak out, "Hello, old friend," in return to the demon's greeting.

The response was a disturbing chuckle; the demon was taking amusement in his distress. Hikou's hands, folded before him and tucked into the billowing sleeves, parted now, letting the long sleeves ripple around his sides as he reached out, but stopped himself, tapering fingers inches from the monk's face. 

"That's better," Hikou  said softly, and then withdrew his hands abruptly. Houjun was not allowed time to think about the gesture, as the demon sought to invade his personal space now, by stepping forward, forcing the monk to take a step back to keep any semblance of personal space between them.

The smile on Hikou's face grew sharper, curving into a crescent of cruelty as he advanced another step on the monk. "You seem surprised to see me, Houjun. Did you really think that you could ignore your sin for long?" the demon questioned.

Houjun blinked once, shaking his head in abrupt denial, even as he became aware of the riverbank at his heels. His feet began to sink into soft earth, and with another step he would be in the water. But still, he tried to answer Hikou's accusation. 

"I never forgot my sin, Hikou. Never did I forgive myself my trespass against you. But I cannot help be surprised; I had always hoped that you had found Kouran in heaven." His burgundy eye turned sorrowful, as he regarded his 'friend', "I see that you did not."

The demon paused at the mention of Her name. "Kouran…" He said it quietly, curiously—but at least he stopped in his advance. "No, there is no place for me in heaven. Especially not with her. Not with so many other… options for me to take." He lifted his chin slightly, smug and derisive all at once. "Not with you here, living your life, fulfilled your duties, going on as if nothing had happened! No," his voice dipped dangerously low. "They don't want me in heaven. Nor would she, and I wager, neither do you."

Houjun absorbed it all with quiet patience, the demon's eyes on him, even as he tried to understand. Hikou said he had no place with Kouran? But he had seen them! Seen His lips on Hers, seem their embrace! "Kouran… you…." All thoughts of heaven were gone. The only thing that gripped him now the horrible, wonderful thought that maybe he had been wrong. Maybe she had loved him after all.

And Hikou could see it in his face, in the hope that dawned wildly in that single eye. "No, Houjun. She never loved me." There was a rueful irony to the demon's voice that he could not place—but the demon was on the move again. 

"It must've been hard, then," Houjun murmured, as he gripped his shakujo more tightly. "To be refused by her, then, and slain by me. But I had hoped you would have found peace… but I can see now that you fell farther then I could have ever dropped you." 

"No one could have dropped me as far as you did, Houjun."

The monk had no answer; he only knew that he had to move, lest he be backed into the river and dropped to the same death that Hikou had been. In an act of self-preservation, he leapt, and activated a spell. Crimson light took over his form—and shunted him to a hill top, far behind the demon. He landed in a crouch, and turned. He looked back just in time to see the demon turn, his hands spreading outward, sleeves rippling in a wind that was not there a moment ago.

Houjun could not hear the demon whisper, "Yes. Run. Let me come catch you. Give me the chase,"  but he could hear the roar of the water that the demon summoned from the river. He could see the violet energies spike wildly around the dark-haired man's form. "I have a new name, now, Houjun! See why they call me Kankei!" 

Much to the monk's horror, he could easily see why the name was apropos. The river was rushing _up_ the hill to where he stood. He did not have time to move nor run, and so hastily threw up a barrier as the water nearly overwhelmed him. But it proved futile. Hikou had the power to move the entire river as he saw fit, rushing it up from its proper course, to hurl itself against his shield. 

It did not hold. Shattering inward, the crimson energy dissipated and he was struck with the river's full rage. Hikou's laughter was lost to the Suzaku shichiseishi as he was tossed between the trees like a child's toy in a game of kickball. There was a crunch of bones here. The snap of his staff there. Another agonized break over there. The temptation to simply die was strong; all he had to do was open his mouth and let the rush of water fill his lungs and stomach till they burst.

But before the decision could be made, he was unceremoniously deposited on the soaked earth, wet grass tickling his ear. He spat out blood and water, and gagged on the taste that choked his throat. Rolling to his side, he groaned in pain; his arms and ribs were broken, and he vomited bile into the grass. The acid stung the cuts in his mouth and on his lip, but it was a minor annoyance compared to the pain that he was otherwise in. 

"You really are making this too easy," Hikou spoke. Houjun was unsure when he had gotten there, but he was too busy trying to get to his knees and not topple from the pain to truly mark the demon's arrival. "Please, don't hold back on my account."

Finally, the shichiseishi was on his knees. The words rung in his ears, along with the sound of the river in the distance. The dark magic was gone, the violet fire vanished. Only Hikou remained, his wings folded against his back, his arms hanging at his side. 

"Are you trying to rise?" the demon asked. "I heard ribs go. And your arm is useless. Do you really think to struggle against me?"

"I refuse…to lay down and die…" Houjun breathed, "just to let you finish what I started."

"Don't give me that," Hikou snapped in return, seeking to rip apart the man's pride, cut away his sense of self. "You want this finished as much as I do. Admit that you wanted to kill me then, and we can proceed." But despite his violent words, the demon crouched before the fallen warrior, and reached out to smooth away the blood from his lip, gathering it up on his fingers.

Houjun remained still throughout the motion, discomfited by the strange game that the demon was playing. The only other man that had ever shown this sort of behavior was Nakago; the Shogun had turned a kiss into a battle maneuver, followed up by a knee to the groin and a fist to the gut. To put Hikou in the same category as the Seiryuu Shichiseishi was disturbing, to say the least. But he answered him honestly, as honestly as he knew how to. 

"I never wanted to kill you." It was painful to take the breath necessary to speak, let alone to try to gulp in the air that his aching body was demanding after his near-drowning. But he had to attempt to answer Hikou's demands, even if he knew the demon would not be satisfied with his answers.

"Didn't you?" Hikou replied, as he watched the blood he had gathered trickle down his fingers. It was mixed with water and bile. Hikou considered it, before lifting his eyes to meet Houjun's gaze. Once the man was sure he held the latter's horrified attention, he slowly parted his lips, and slipped his middle finger between them, slowly stripping the blood from his skin with the same delicacy one afforded a lollipop. 

Houjun was repulsed. Hikou triumphed in his revulsion, and let his hand drop to his side, leaving the rest of his blood on his skin. "We should get to the ending, Houjun. You know you want to."

"What ending would that be?" the monk asked, before turning his head to spit blood and bile from his mouth again. They gathered between lips and teeth, frothing every time he spoke, making him look akin to a rabid dog that had just taken a chunk out of his master's hand. "I suppose this won't be done until you've enjoyed yourself enough? But... where is the satisfaction for you, Hikou, if I don't fight back?"

"Where is my satisfaction? What satisfaction can I take in this? In you, beaten so?" The demon leaned forward, eyes dancing with hellish glee. "You have _no_ idea."

And then he was pushing forward, launching from his crouch to barrel into the Seishi of the god of love. Houjun's scream was torn forcibly from his lips, even as the demon's weight was dropped against him. But Hikou remained oddly careful, as he propped himself above the broken man. "Are you such a fool, Houjun? That you would say you are guilty, yet resist my rightful revenge? You don't know the meaning of the word 'damn' yet. But I'll teach you." 

"Suzaku…!" slipped from Houjun's tortured lips as his consciousness faded. He could barely breathe, and the pain of the man's weight, his legs entangled with his own, was enough to keep him from thinking or speaking coherently. Instead, he lost himself in darkness, never mind that Hikou watched him intently as the light of his eye danced in and out of sight.

"Suzaku will not answer you, Houjun," the demon whispered. "He can't help you here." Carefully, he propped himself up and slowly lifted his hand. The earlier impulse denied, he now gives into fully. Tapering fingers, cool and clammy and lacking the warmth of the living, pressed into that scar. He carefully traced the ridges, the hills and valleys of the ruined flesh where the eye had been. "Sleep," he whispered, as the fingers trailed down from scar to cheek. "I have no intention of killing you yet."

The monk's eye fluttered closed, with only an exhale of the demon's name on his lips. With a smirk, the demon rolled off him. "To think that you would take my word at face value, Houjun," the demon replied. The things he could do! Force gallons of water down his throat until he burst. Toss him into the river and let nature take its course. Take him, and…

The demon shook his head quietly and began to rise, the thought aborted before it's birth. He had other plans. Carefully, he began to arrange the shichiseishi's broken body, and hefted him up into his arms. "You were always such a fool, Houjun," he said to his sleeping passenger, carefully arranging him for maximum comfort.

"But then, so was I."

With an explosion of water and violet fire, the pair were gone, leaving the ghost-village quiet… as if no one had disturbed its deathly tranquility.


	2. The True Sin

Love Lies Bleeding ~ Two

Love Lies Bleeding

**_Memories are just where you laid them,_**

**_dragging waters 'til the depths give up their dead._**

**_What did you expect to find?_**

**_Was it something you left behind?_**

**_Don't you remember everything I said when I said:_**

**_ _**

**_Don't fall away, and leave me to myself._**

**_Don't fall away, and leave love bleeding in my hands,_**

**_in my hands again;_**

**_leave love bleeding in my hands._**

**_In my hands,_**

**_love lies bleeding._**

**_ _**

'Hemorrhage (Love Lies Bleeding)',Fuel

** **

Dripping. Plip, plop. The repetitive suicide of droplets of water, plunging from the jagged teeth of the cavern's roof to dive to their deaths below, little droplets gathering in pools in the floor of the cave. The sound of their unkind landing in a good number of small puddles, throughout the large cavern, was the first noise Houjun was aware of.

The next thing that penetrated his senses was the cold. He was in a bed—a mat of straw, covered by a sheet. It was a simple enough thing; he'd slept on one before as a novice, studying at his temple before his vows were formalized. But the sheet and blanket tossed over him couldn't keep the damp chill from his skin. 

That was the third realization; that he was bare. His arms, his chest; both stripped and bandaged. He checked the splint, and then tried to sit up slowly. He stopped, grunting in pain as he realized that yes, his ribs were still healing; but at least he wasn't in agony anymore. He could breathe without pain, which made him wonder just how long he had been senseless. Long enough for his ribs to partially heal. 

But he was alive. And taken care of. His recollections were dim; did he dream the hands that soothed his fever and calmed his delusions? He knew that he could not be alone, as he was alive and taken care of, but could Hikou have really brought him here?

But then, he mused, who else but a river-spirit would chose to live in a cold, wet, limestone cavern?

"Hikou?" he called, his voice rough from disuse. His single eye tracked the shadows; his injury ruined his depth perception, so the shadows concealed all, hiding the walls and the exact dimensions of the room from his gaze. And so, he was unsurprised when he heard the demon finally speak from a corner he had already peered at intently.

"You're awake. I thought you'd never come around." 

Hikou rose from a crouch; he had hidden himself purposely, taking pleasure in the monk's inability to truly see him. Even now, he was unnoticed. Just as the truth, then, had been unseen. The demon cherished the irony—but now stepped forward, slippered feet standing atop the water as easily as one might've stood on good, firm stone. 

Houjun moved to rise; but to his dismay, he found he had been disrobed. The blanket was abruptly clutched tighter to his hips, his eye widening and a flush crossing his face. "I—I'm not even sure how long I've been out," he admitted after he found the use of his voice again. The demon's wry chuckle at his discomfort only made him feel worse.

"Two weeks, perhaps," the demon offered as he moved quietly forward, till there was only ten feet between his body at the bed that Houjun rested on. "Time has no meaning in places like this." Even as Houjun's face fell, the demon added insult to injury. "You were quite delirious, and fairly amusing in your madness. Oh, and… your clothes were ruined, so I stripped you down, and disposed of them for you," he smirked, then, and added, "Hope you don't mind."

Ignoring the comment from the demon, Houjun moved away from the topic of his clothing—or his nudity—and instead began to run over the possibilities of what could have happened while he was mad with fever. Weeks had passed; Ryuu Kouran would likely be worrying now. But Hikou would hardly allow him to fall into his thoughts, and instead interrupted his brooding with a simple suggestion.

"You're probably hungry, aren't you?"

A rumble answered the question for Houjun. The monk scowled, irritated at his body's betrayal of his state, and sighed. "Hai," he answered, until a dark thought passed behind his eyes. "Unless you intend to starve me now."

Cruel mirth danced in Hikou's eyes as he laughed at the suggestion. "I don't think I'd mind the entertainment that could be wrought from watching you waste away until there was nothing left of you but skin and bones, so brittle that you'd fall apart with a single touch." His eyes widened, as is a new suggestion had crossed his mind. "Or perhaps you might even be driven to extremes by the want of your own belly... I wonder, Houjun," Hikou turned then to the enjoy the look of horror that had crossed Houjun's maimed face, "if you would actually gnaw on your own limbs if left to such a demise."

Hikou moved toward one of the shadow-coated walls and worked something near them, before reaching for something that Houjun could not discern with his faulty vision. 

"Of course," Hikou added, as he turned from his work, bearing a pot of soup in his hands, "poison has its merits as well."

The demon closed the distance between the broken shichiseishi, and looked down upon him, his eyes dark, amber depths glittering with the sparks of amusement. "Will you eat it, Houjun? And risk being eaten from the inside out?"

The monk's good hand was offered for the bowl. "I will take my risks," Houjun replied simply. 

The bowl changed hands. "I bet you can't even feed yourself. One handed—and with no spoon, either," Hikou remarked, as he watched the injured man attempt to make himself more comfortable upon the bed he had been placed on. There was a grunt of pain, but it did not move the demon's stony, neutral countenance to anything resembling sympathy. Hikou's eyes were merely having trouble finding a place to rest upon the monk; the bare, bandaged chest offered no respite, and the twisted, maimed visage that clenched in pain was not much better. But Houjun's face was easier to deal with than his body and the reaction it had once incited, so the amber orbs found themselves gazing at the pale-faced shichiseishi.

"This is not at all how I imagined it would be," Hikou voiced idly, as Houjun leaned back against his seat, trying to ignore the fire that ran up his limbs. "It's sad, really."

"And how did you expect it to be?" Houjun asked, as he looked down into the bowl of soup now resting in his single, working hand. "I know this is not at all anything I expected, in all my life." 

But the errant comment had quite the unexpected affect; Hikou's face was twisted now, bitterness showing plainly upon it. "And you've lived so much longer then I have, haven't you."

Houjun was immediately contrite, his head bowed. He had not meant to cause Hikou further suffering, no matter what he was doing to him. Instead, he turned his attention to his soup. Balancing the small bowl in his hand, be brought it to his lip, and drained the broth like he would a cup of tea. Some escaped the corners of his mouth, dribbling down his chin, and once the cup was emptied he quickly set it aside, bringing up his hand to catch the precious fluid on his fingers and lick it off them. He didn't know when he would eat next, and thus nothing was wasted.

But when he finally turned his eyes to Hikou once more, the cleaning of his fingers finished, he found the demon staring at him. Lips slightly parted, the demon's eyes widened. Had he done something wrong? Had Hikou poisoned the broth, and not expected him to take it? "Hikou?"

The demon turned, and then moved from the bed, not at all acknowledging that he was being spoken to. Instead, he leaned against a nearby stretch of wall, falling silent for a time. Houjun could only stare after him in confusion.

"You spoke while the fever had you," Hikou finally said after a moment, finally breaking the silence that built steadily between them.

Houjun nodded once. "And what did I say?" he asked, his tone carrying the weight of caution.

"You… cried out. You spoke of forgiveness. And you asked… It made me wonder," the demon answered as he turned away from his captive, giving his gaze to the wall and folding his arms tight and tense across his chest, "how could you think, even with a diseased mind, that you had the right to ask such a thing of me." 

Hikou waited. Waited for the pleading to begin. For the begging and the sobbing and the apology. For something. Anything. 

Instead, he got Houjun's rough voice, answering him plainly. "I have never wanted anything more than your forgiveness. But I..." he swallowed hard, his throat abruptly dry despite the dampness of his surroundings. The monk was unaware that the demon mimicked the gesture, mouth equally parched despite Hikou's watery nature. "I... I had no right to ask these things of you. Gomen. Gomen nasai."

Hikou turned back to him now, still at the wall. The pale face, with the shock of dark blue lashed against one pale cheek—the other lacking the fringe that had once decorated the lid. He finally moved from the wall, to look down at the bowed head; the ridiculous, short blue hair, the jet of bangs that flopped to the side.

The scar.

Suddenly, his hands were no longer fisted at his side, but raised, reaching for Houjun's face. He gripped the monk's chin, tilting his head up and holding him firmly, even as his fingers began to explore the scar once again. It was better now that he was awake, with his other eye wide open, to compare the two sides of his face; one caught in the moment of his youth, the other bearing the weight of his age.

"I cannot forgive you," Hikou whispered to the man who abruptly trembled. The demon's touch was a violation as intimate as any could be. Hikou continued to explore the physical reminder of Houjun's sin as he ignored the man's anguish and continued to trace the ridge and valley of flesh with the most delicate of touches. "If I could forgive you, this would all be over soon. But I cannot pretend that my forgiveness would mean anything, and I indulge in illusions like love and friendship anymore. You don't even know what you did. How can I forgive that?"

His touch deepened; the monk's aura—warm and fiery like the fires of Suzaku on a good day, but woefully depleted now—was his new field for exploration. Like snakes through the reeds, Hikou's energies slithered out to explore the monk's spirit, eliciting a cry of grief from his victim. 

"Not know?" Houjun sobbed now, confused and frightened, but unable to defend himself from either the physical or spiritual intrusion. One hand fluttered helplessly, but he knew it was useless to struggle. Could he push away this demon? He could barely manage to feed himself! "How can I not know my own sin?" All he found himself able to do was sob and try and turn his head away.

Finally, Hikou released him, his hands drawing back as he stared down dispassionately at the monk. "You don't know. You still don't know," he intoned flatly, even as Houjun curled protectively inward, as if to prevent another molestation. "And… I don't feel like telling you."

"Tell me," came the ragged request, Houjun's voice thick with fear and pain. "Tell me. If I must stand before the Gods someday with my sins, at least let me know what other wrongs I must be accounted for!" 

Silence reigned between them. Hikou stood as unmoving as a statue, and Houjun, shuddering with silent sobs, waited, his burgundy eye silvered with unshed tears. Finally, the demon took a breath.

"You didn't notice," finally escapes the demon's lips as a breathless exhale. Suddenly the formidable Shittenou was gone, leaving behind a heartbroken young man. "You fell in love with her, and forgot all about me... you never noticed that I..." Hikou's voice sank to a whisper, as if even it meant to desert him now. "... I loved you... and you didn't notice... and I... not even... when I kissed her..."

Houjun was silent. Even after Hikou's confession, he could not speak. His mind was ablur. Hikou? Hikou had loved him? Not as a brother, but...

"Suzaku," Houjun finally breathed.

"No," Hikou snapped, his tongue dripping bitterness. "He has no place in this." The demon stared for a time at the monk, as the truth penetrated his mind. He no longer cared about how it might affect the shichiseishi. He was more concerned with getting away from that hollow stare, and the accusation he knew was lurking behind them.

"I'll let that sink in for a while," he finally rasped, turning his back. Water lept up about his form, and before the monk could come around enough to protest, the demon was gone.

Houjun was alone.

And in the safety of solitude, he laid down on the rough bed, and began to weep for all that they had lost.


	3. Seven Year Consummation

**_ _**

**_Love Lies Bleeding_**

**_ _**

**_ _**

**_Memories are just where you laid them,_**

**_dragging waters 'til the depths give up their dead._**

**_What did you expect to find?_**

**_Was it something you left behind?_**

**_Don't you remember everything I said when I said:_**

**_ _**

**_Don't fall away, and leave me to myself._**

**_Don't fall away, and leave love bleeding in my hands,_**

**_in my hands again;_**

**_leave love bleeding in my hands._**

**_In my hands,_**

**_love lies bleeding._**

**_ _**

**_ _**

'Hemorrhage (Love Lies Bleeding)',Fuel

**_ _**

**_This chapter is a lemon! Not a very graphic lemon, but a lemon all the same. You have been warned._**

The demon was quiet as he returned to the caves. He reformed himself, building a body from the water that made the rock dangerously slippery, and kept any warmth from lingering in this cold, dank place. He reformed with his eyes closed, amber points shut against the sight he knew was awaiting him. 

He had stayed away for some time. As he had said, time had little meaning here. Still, it was time he needed, however long it had truly been. But he couldn't hide from it anymore, now. He had to come back, to whatever the end might be. Houjun was just beyond the shadows, on that bed Hikou had dragged down here, and he was waiting for Hikou. Waiting for the end. 

Hikou might as well give it to him.

His eyes opened, and he found himself looking at the monk. He had managed to get himself upright, sitting on the bed, his legs folded carefully under him. The sheet had been arranged to hide any evidence of his nakedness below the waist. It was creatively tucked about his legs and backside till it looked like he was wearing a rather dingy skirt. His hands were curled up in meditative mudras on his knees, and his single eye was closed. With the cave so quiet but for the dripping, Hikou could hear his rhythmic, practiced breathing. With his other senses, he could detect the rise in the other man's ki. Had he been meditating and restoring himself all this time?

But then that burgundy eye opened, and Chichiri's gaze found him, even in the darkness. "You can come out now. We both know you are there, and we cannot finish this game till you make the next move."

Hikou rankled under the flat order from his captive, his eyes narrowing to slivers. Houjun was in no position to order the Shittenou about yet he found himself stepping from the shadow. "Is that all this is to you?" he asked, "Or is it what you think it is to me? Just a game?" His voice was soft, but querulous.

"Every cat must toy with it's mouse," Houjun answered simply. Gone was the sorrow and the grief and the fear. In it's place was placid calm, the reflection of meditations on peace and the God of Love—who was also the god of harmony. "I doubt you have the honor to take a clean kill, if that's what you wish."

Hikou's face remained neutral, carefully set into a dispassionate blankness. "Is that it? Or, perhaps, I'm playing with you even now," he stepped forward, waving a hand in an idle gesture, his long sleeves trailing with the motions. "And perhaps I was before. Could I have been? Could I have told you that to throw you off guard? Or maybe I should have told you that Kouran and I had been fucking for months. Would you have been shocked? Would you have wept? Or would you have gotten angry again, like you did then?"

The monk's serenity began to falter. "I'm sure you've played out every strategy, Hikou. Every possible move, every possible dialogue has been played out behind your eyes. You know how to put me into check with skill." 

"You could be playing the game too, Houjun. Are you so certain you're not?" Hikou suggested, his lips curling in a sneer. "Or have you found your moral high ground now? Safe above the flood water of hypocrisy."

Houjun's single eye began to burn darkly, ire rising with him. He didn't want to give into anger, but slowly, it began to fuel the words that fell from his lips. "Saa… I at least was honest in my hate and blunt in my rage. This game of yours is hardly that. You've figured out how to hurt me. But it's what I deserve, isn't it? For my sin against you," despite the acceptance of the words, his tone was anything but. There was anger. Bitterness. Hurt.

"Saa. Gotten over yourself, have you? Your words are resigned, but your tone is not," Hikou came closer as he spoke, his neutrality broken by a twist of his lips. And another, and another, until a full fledged smirk found itself on his face. Amusement was writ across his face; in the glimmer of his eyes, the cruel twist of his lips. "And there you sit. A monk of his Feathered Holiness. And here I am, a demon damned to hell—which I blame you for, I might add, in case you haven't noticed." 

He leaned down, now, closing the space between himself and his victim. "How does it feel now, Houjun? How does it feel to know that you were lied to? Betrayed by someone you trusted?" His hand lifted, and he traced a line across the monk's jaw. Houjun jerked back, but Hikou continued to reach for him, to touch invasively. "Funny how hormones ruin everything. Attached at the hip one moment, sucking face with the other's girlfriend and then tossing each other into rivers the next." His eyes narrowed and his lips curled into a crescent of cruelty, even as Houjun's good hand began to tremble. "Welcome to reality, Houjun. There isn't much to it, is there?"

Houjun glared. Finally giving into anger, his single eye burned with it as he stared at his tormentor. "Your lies will get you nowhere. I know the truth of things! You instrumented your own death with your dishonesty… If you _really_ loved me, like you said you did, you wouldn't have ruined my wedding! You would have let me be happy! Love means _sacrifice!_"

Hikou met the accusation with laughter.

The demon straightened, and he tossed his head back and cackled at the monk. He ignored Houjun, no matter that the monk was trying to rise, his hand was trembling as he pushed himself up from the bed. 

"Do you honestly believe that? Even after everything, do you still cling to the illusion that love exists?" Hikou retorted. "Are you still that eighteen year old boy that had eyes for no one but his 'true love'?" He turned his head, and spat to the side, as if he were defiling the very idea. "Grow up, Houjun. Love is a sugarcoating for lust. And lust asks for everything, and gives nothing in return. With lust—there's no sacrifice."

Houjun stood there, legs trembling and ribs aching. "I think you're wrong," he said. "Though, by your own words, you invalidate all your own piteous cries for love. You never loved me at all, and all of this is simply because I didn't look on you as a lover."

"You didn't even realized I existed, Houjun, once you turned your eyes to Kouran," was the return scoff. "You forgot me. Your family. You built your world around her, and as far as the rest of us didn't exist." The demon's eyes narrowed. "Do you know Kouran's sister was trying to court me? Did you know that your brother was considering leaving the farm to you and going to Eiyou, to make his fortune there? Did you see beyond her? Or were you simply being selfish and pretending there was nothing beyond your precious romance?"

Houjun blinked once, twice, the anger in his dark eye abruptly turning to shock. "Umiko? And you?" His brows knitted. No. He hadn't known. Any of it. It showed plain on his face as it twisted up in a grimace. This disturbed him; had he really been so blind?

"No one could get your attention, Houjun," Hikou whispered now, sliding closer over the water as he saw his opening. "You didn't care about anything except your happiness. And how could you expect me to get your attention any other way… than with her?" He didn't want her, but he would use her. If he couldn't have Houjun, then he would have Houjun's wife-to-be.

"No—no, it wasn't like that," the monk denied lamely, even as he began to doubt. "You could have said _something!_" 

"Said what? 'Hey, Houjun, would you like to try the other side of the fence and fuck?'" As Houjun's jaw dropped at the blunt statement, Hikou made his move. Hands lashed out with the quickness of serpents and took a hold of the man's shoulders, drawing him in for a fast, hard kiss.

  
Houjun gasped sharply as cool lips claimed his own and Hikou took full advantage. His tongue swept out, tasting the inside of Houjun's lips, and eliciting a strangled gasp from the other man. Houjun's good hand made contact with Hikou's chest, pushing hard against him. The demon let him go—and Houjun fell back onto the bed with the force of his own shove.

Even as Houjun's head smacked against the cavern wall that the bed was pressed against, Hikou smirked, looking down at his startled and dazed prey. "So, do you? Want to fuck, that is."

"H-Hikou!" Despite Houjun's gasped protest, Hikou was down upon the bed within moments, the straw was crunching beneath their shared weight. The demon's mouth was now wandering across his neck, even as Houjun pushed ineffectually against his shoulder, shuddering as cool lips tracked over his skin, chilling him slightly. Hikou didn't notice the pushing fall away, nor the quiet that came over his companion.

He did notice the trembling.

Hikou did not stop for a time, laying cool kisses in a line to the first bandage that curled around the monk's chest. And there he paused, pressing his brow to the living man's chest, the cool stone of the jade circle he wore at his brow colder then his lips had been. "You're trembling. But you're not fighting."

Houjun did not answer.

"What is it? Scared? Like it? Don't like it? Worried? Hurting?" he lifted his head, quietly asking. The rage and anger was gone from both, and for the demon the feelings that had damned him renewed themselves, deep within. He gazed down at his captive, his eyes bright with his ardor. He saw that Houjun's eyes were closed, his face drawn with tension. Hikou reached up and caressed his cheek, watching the eye flutter open, confusion in the burgundy orb.

"I'll give you this one chance," Hikou said softly. "To escape. I won't stop you. Go if you want." But then his eyes glittered with a dark sort of mirth. "But if you don't, in the next few moments, I'm taking the sheet away."

A long moment passed between the pair, as they gazed at one another, Hikou's eyes reflecting the distraught monk's face. But then, oddly, a strange sort of calm passed over the monk's visage, and he raised his hands to the heavy weight of his prayerbeads; their holy nature meant that no demon could remove them.

Hikou waited for the inevitable; the swell of ki, and the emptiness of the straw bed. Houjun's fingers tightened about his beads—and then, he lifted his head, and clumsily took them off. 

Hikou's jaw sagged, his eyes widening as he watched Houjun tug at them once when they became entangled with his ponytail. With a jerk, garnering a wince from the monk, they were free of him, and he dropped them off the side of the bed. The sound they made when they struck damp stone was almost musical.

They stared at each other once more, Hikou's eyes wide, Houjun's single eye serene. 

The shittenou's mouth worked mutely for a moment, but then he stopped himself. The choice was made for both of them. There was no going back now.

His hands went to the sheet and he slowly began to draw it away, and leisurely revealed the lean form beneath him. Houjun's body was pale and lean, battled scarred; bandages obscured most of his chest, and elsewhere there were little reminders that the man had lived through the war with Kutou-koku. A slash here, a gouge there. Ugly memories writ deep into his flesh.

But Hikou drew it further, ignoring the shiver the cool air inspired in the monk. Down over narrow hips, and then finally, simply away, gathered up from his legs and set aside. Hikou sat on his haunches and gazed at the sight bared to him, no matter that Houjun turned his face away, embarrassed beyond all measure. 

Bloody, dirty, and feverish, his naked form had not been beautiful. Houjun had simply been meat then. Now, now Hikou remembered why he had wanted him when he was a youth. From the maimed visage, to the soft manhood nestled in sparse, azure blue curls, Hikou felt a surge of old emotion; desire mingling with something softer. Fonder then simply lust. 

"Saa…" the demon uttered softly—and then began to strip hastily. Houjun blinked at the haste the demon made, watching as he kicked off his shoes, and began to tug at his robes, his wings flaring behind him as he rose from the bed to attempt to undress. 

"Hikou, this is not a race," he gave as a weak rejoinder, but merely got a snort from the demon in return.

"It might be," Hikou said cryptically. Regardless, he continued with his feverish undressing until Houjun sat up and reached out to grasp his clothes.

There was a surge of magic, before Hikou abruptly found himself very aware of a draft. Now it was his turn to flush, as Houjun kept his gaze trained strictly on the demon's face and handed him his neatly folded clothing. "Handy trick," the shittenou said ruefully.

"Never really put it to use till now, unless it was with the injured," Houjun admitted, still keeping his eyes carefully on his companion's face. The clothes were set at the end of the bed. Hikou and Houjun found themselves staring at each other once again. 

Hikou paused there—flushing now. "Should have done this before I got undressed," he muttered. But even as he spoke those words, violet flame began to lick around his form, and his wings spread wide—before abruptly retracting into his back, vanishing from sight. The unnatural flame died away.

Houjun could not help but stare; Hikou blushed slightly under the intensity of his gaze. "I am dead, Houjun. But I can simulate life when I need to. Though I doubt that it was ever intended for anything like this."

Not sparing anymore words, Hikou returned to the bed, stiff length already bobbing between his legs, an acute ache that demanded satisfaction. The demon-turned-man's attempts to contain his eagerness ultimately failed, but he wasn't rough. His hands were quickly placed on his partner's shoulders, and he pushed him gently back. Now, Houjun didn't tremble, instead doing as he was directed, docile as a lamb. Hikou's head dipped downward even as he laid the shichiseishi against the straw mat and found his throat with his now-warm lips, and lapped gently at his captive's neck. He was hardly experienced, but having seven long years to get ideas, it didn't take him long to figure out what he wanted to do.

Kisses quickly turned to suckling, as he found the sensitive places on Houjun's neck; he toyed with his earlobes, traced the shell of an ear with his tongue, and gained shivers that were not of revulsion. Everything was new for both; neither had ever had a lover, and slowly Hikou began to discover what he could do. Houjun's vocal demonstrations were minimal; he was quiet. Very quiet. He gasped softly, and whimpered on occasion as Hikou's mouth worked over his skin, nibbling at his collarbone, making his way south with deliberation. But the reactions of his body were obvious. The tension, the tremble, the shudders; it didn't take demonic powers to figure out that he could in fact arouse the man, even if it did take work. But he was willing.

Oh, gods, was he willing!

Hands and mouth grew warmer as the press of bodies generated heat of their down. Hikou was careful not to lie atop Houjun, as the monk was still quite damaged. Straddling his legs, Hikou slid his fingertips over Houjun's hips as his mouth skipped over the monk's bandaged torso. They were not as warm, perhaps, as the shichiseishi, but the illusion of humanity was almost totally complete. His hands were certainly warm enough that they didn't shrink Houjun's manhood when Hikou grasped him gently.

The intimate touch made the monk's half-lidded, hazy eye fly open as he felt Hikou explore him with curious fingertips, feeling the odd sensation of his own body harden at another's touch. His life had been one of denial of sensuality, and so to feel his body pulse with this new rhythm was alien, and not a little frightening. He whimpered, the sound fearful, as he shifted under the demon's touch. Hikou took a place at his side now, lying carefully along the edge of the bed. 

"Shush," he whispered. "I'm not going to hurt you." The soft assurance did little to assuage the fear in that single eye, but the nuzzling kiss the demon dropped to his lips slowly worried away his apprehension.Hikou's hands slid along the half-firm length, coaxing him to further fullness, even as amber eyes drank up the sight of the monk. 

He was gentle, surprisingly enough; Houjun expected him to be otherwise. But still—Hikou had said he loved him at one moment, and then said love was only a coating for lust the next. But slowly those thoughts drifted away as the arousal those hands generated began to drive away all but the most persistent of worries. He couldn't deny it; it felt good!

The hand did not stop, even as Hikou began to situate himself between the other's legs. Where Houjun's erection was not quite complete, Hikou's was well past; it was a brand between his legs, leaving him on the edge of frustration. But that didn't stop him from eventually resting the living man's legs on his shoulders, and carefully dipping downward.

Hikou cast a glance at Houjun, waiting for him to look at him, as he was poised above the throbbing length captured in his hand. Houjun was sure there was amusement; almost as if asking him, 'Well, looky here! What do I do now?' in jest. His eyebrows arched upward, and only increased the impression the monk had gleaned. And then, he dropped his head quietly, mouth opening, before he extended his tongue, garnering a shocked gasp as it first.

Houjun's voice rose in abrupt shock. "Wh-what are y-you d-doing!?" He stammered, his single eye the size of a saucer.

Hikou smirked, as he tentatively licked across the tip of the living man's cock, taking pleasure in the shock on his victim's face, before Houjun collapsed back to the pillow with a groan. Hikou shook his head, chuckling at the low whine that rose from his partner's throat, before simply and carefully taking the head within his mouth. His teeth scraped slightly, until he had the good sense to wrap his lips about them, deciding that it wouldn't do well to gnaw on Houjun's organ.

He found a rhythm, slow and steady, careful of his partner. Never mind that Houjun's eye was rolling back in his head and his chest had begun to heave with deep pants, Hikou was still worried that he would not really be pleasured. Anyone could get a man up; it took skill to get a man off, right? Unable to really answer his own question or calm his own fears of inadequacy, he continued to bob up and down, slowly taking the monk within the cavern of his mouth before sliding up until he only held the head in his mouth, giving it a firm suckle before back down again.

While Hikou worried about his oral skills, Houjun's fingers found their way into the demon's dark blue hair. But annoyance took the shittenou as Houjun's hips began to work with him, and he found himself dealing with a wriggling lover who seemed to want to help him when he didn't need any assistance. He lifted his hands, and pressed them to Houjun's hips; in the monk's weakened state, it was more then enough to keep him from bucking, for the most part. While Houjun was not fantastically endowed, the first abrupt and unexpected thrust into Hikou's mouth nearly left him gagging.

All the same, he did his work well. "H-Hikou…" the monk gasped, but Hikou did not hear him. The demon slid upward, and found himself tasting… ki. At least, it was a form of it. Lifeforce, ki, and the man's seed—they all had the same essence within them. He found he didn't mind it much; it was not a really a taste he was accustomed to, but found that it was not at all unpleasant. He paused, to lap at the tip delicately, gathering it into his mouth—before the monk abruptly jerked beneath him and he found he had much more of that fluid ki than he had bargained for.

But he did not jerk away. He held to Houjun's hips, trying to keep him from bucking wildly, as that first orgasm overtook the monk's unprepared senses. But once his thrashing stilled, Hikou carefully let him slide free—never mind the mouthful of seed that he held behind his lips. His first thought was a moment of indecision and inexperience: just what the hell could he do with a mouthful of come?

Houjun turned glassy eyes to Hikou, and for a moment, they stared at each other, as Hikou debated just want to do with the fluid in his mouth. His brow quivered once—and Houjun began to snicker. And with the beginning of his laughter, Hikou turned his head and spat violently, expelling the sticky fluid with one mighty 'ptui!'

Houjun only laughed harder, voice husked from the night's activities.

"Oh, go ahead and laugh at me after I've just given my first blow job," Hikou retorted, though he realized just how comical he looked, reaching up to brush the remaining fluid from his face and flicking it away with his fingers. "Baka. Like you would do better your first time."

"The… the look on your face…" Houjun gasped out between chuckles. "It was… so… priceless." His hands folded on his chest, his gaze disconcertingly close to acceptance; perhaps even affectionate.

"Saa… Bastard. See if I ever get you off again," the demon replied, as he crept down against the other man, his eyes half-lidded. His body was a shock for the lust-heated monk, but he adjusted easily enough; though the weight of Hikou's erection, hot against his leg, was a reminder that he was sated where the demon was not.

Wasn't it the demon that had wanted this in the first place?

"You… you're still…" The monk tried to come around and simply say it; but years of denying that his own organs existed for anything other then waste disposal was something that was deeply ingrained now. 

"Hard as a rock?" Hikou suggested after he realized the man couldn't finish the sentence. At Houjun's nod, the man just smirked. "Well, if you wanna help me out with that…"

"I don't think... I can do what you just did," Houjun said quickly, his eye widening. Hikou just laughed at him; there was no mockery to his tone, only rich amusement at his companion's innocence.

"Yes you can," Hikou replied, brushing away any argument. "You've got one good hand, don't you?" The demon paused as Houjun blushed furiously. "Please, now. You can't tell me you've never," he smirked, as he gave a colorful euphemism for the activity he was about to suggest, "pumped the monk?" 

Houjun turned _purple._ He stammered; for a moment, Hikou wondered if he might swallow his tongue in his shock. "Houjun?"

"I've never—I mean, I don't—_I'm a MONK!"_ Houjun's face scrunched up in embarrassment which was quickly made all the worse by Hikou's riotous laughter. "Stop that! It's not—I don't—I was saving myself!" 

"You're serious, aren't you?" Hikou asked as the chuckles died down, leaving him only with a tremor of laughter in his chest. "You… you didn't even before? Not even to the thought of her?" 

Houjun's eye darkened. "Never. I would never debase her or myself that way. It's… It's wrong."

"So's having a man go down on you and make you cry out in ecstasy, Houjun," Hikou reminded gently, before he reached out for the monk's hand. He propped one leg up, and then guided Houjun's hand to his throbbing erection. "You just felt what it's like... Think you can figure it out from there?"

Hikou's hand disengaged from Houjun's, as the monk paused to try and figure out just what he should do. What had Hikou done? He couldn't really pay a lot of attention! Should he have? "I…" He stammered—but then slowly curled his fingers around Hikou's length, and began to explore him. He didn't stroke, per se, but merely let his hand wander, feeling his length gently, from base to tip, feeling it twitch under his touch. He explored the curvature of one vein, and heard his companion give a low sigh.

"Hikou?"

"Go on," the demon rasped softly.

Houjun nodded weakly, before remembering; Hikou had encircled him. And so, he made a small, loose fist and then drew it back and forth along the demon's shaft. Now, he got a reaction! Hikou's breathing turned erratic, and Houjun watched his face begin to contort and relax, as the monk drew along his skin. He began to move quicker, wondering if that would help, and marveled as Hikou's hips jerked against his touch. 

"Houjun…" the demon moaned now, his eyelids fluttering as the other man finally gave him a release; the orgasm that Houjun brought him to was not earth shattering, ground breaking, or otherwise memorable except for the fact that it had not been Hikou's own hands, fantasizing that the monk was the one touching him.

When he came, Houjun jumped in startlement at the seed that spurted; scoring the demon's belly, splattering against Houjun's arm and hand. And while they lay in the after math, Houjun idly considering the stickiness that coated their skin, he heard the demon whimper once, before falling silent. "Hikou?" he asked in concern. "Daijoubu?"

He was greeting by silence; the demon's face was slack—peaceful for the first time since Houjun had seen him since becoming a demon. "I'm fine, I'm fine," Hikou assured. "More then fine." But the tone of his voice betrayed certain dissatisfaction—this hadn't been quite what the demon desired for his first encounter.

Hikou's hands slid down, trying to wipe away the ejaculate that coated his belly, but only succeeded in getting it on his hands. Houjun also had little luck in removing the sticky substance, and he disliked the feel of it on his skin. But after a moment, neither cared. The monk, beaten and sore, knew that the tingly afterglow of orgasm would soon leave him aching again. Hikou, for his part, was simply not as fulfilled as he had hoped he would be.

Hikou did not move from the bed, despite the lackluster finish to the evening—but he dragged the blanket up over them. Houjun stayed still through it all; but quietly realized that Hikou intended to stay the night. He swallowed softly, his voice rough. "Oyasumi."

"Oyasumi," came the unsure reply.


	4. From Hell to the Holy Mountain

Love Lies Bleeding

Memories are just where you laid them,

dragging waters 'til the depths give up their dead.

What did you expect to find?

Was it something you left behind?

Don't you remember everything I said when I said:

Don't fall away, and leave me to myself.

Don't fall away, and leave love bleeding in my hands,

in my hands again;

leave love bleeding in my hands.

In my hands,

love lies bleeding.

'Hemorrhage (Love Lies Bleeding)',Fuel

There was no dawn in hell.

Of course, the plane in which the hollow cavern existed on was not quite hell, but definitely a distant cousin to said nether realm. Outside the wet dripping and the damp chill of the cave, no sun rose. No cock crowed, instead the damned wailed and wept. But none of this bothered the two occupants of the small, makeshift bed that hugged the wall of the cavern.

The demon slept on his side; wings made it impossible to do otherwise unless he took to his belly. But that was not an option, as he shared the bed with another who could not roll. One of Hikou's arms was folded against him, the other was lazily thrown out over his partner's chest, holding him down and claiming him.

He was not asleep. Lashes and bangs shadowed his nearly closed eyes, the amber depths fixed on his partner's face. He remained peaceful, face still slack with slumber's weight, but he was awake. 

And so was Houjun.

Did he realize what he'd done? Did he regret it? Did he want to do it again? Hikou's thoughts circled these questions obsessively as he felt the monk's chest rise and fall beneath the weight of his arm, watching, wondering what danced behind the single, perfect eye, behind the unmarred lid that obscured it from his sight.

Did he regret it?

Houjun didn't answer. He didn't stir, but Hikou knew he was not asleep. The breathing was wrong; controlled, perhaps in meditation. But how could he meditate now? When he was naked in bed with a man who'd tried to make love to him the night before.

Tried. The word burned at Hikou. Nothing had gone as he expected it to. His plans had been shattered. But still, he had what he wanted, didn't he? Houjun was warm against him, the heat trapped under the blankets giving Hikou a semblance of humanity. It was what he wanted, wasn't it?

He watched his companion feign slumber for a little while longer. He didn't want to emerge from the bubble of warmth he'd created between them, but the bandages that brushed against his arm reminded him that he had an obligation to mend the wounds that he had inflicted. It wouldn't do to let Houjun die or be crippled after he'd let Hikou do as he pleased.

"I should get you back," Hikou finally broke the silence, announcing to Houjun he knew very well that the man was awake. Continuing as Houjun's brows abruptly furrowed, Hikou added, "You need a doctor."

"I need Mitsukake," Houjun sleepily mumbled, voice thick with slumber. "But barring him, yes, I suppose a doctor."

And then he began to squirm. 

Hikou lifted his head and blinked in mild curiosity as Houjun carefully twisted, stretched, and flexed muscles without getting up and stretching in a more conventional manner. But then, the monk was still quite beaten; perhaps this was the only way he could get the kinks out.

Hikou gave a small laugh once it was over and then slowly sat up, the blanket shifting over them both as he pushed it down about his hips. Idly, he looked for his clothing from his seat, leaning forward to discover they'd fallen off the foot of the bed. He paused a moment as a blush crept to his cheeks, and then forced himself to get up and scrabble for his clothes. His gaze wandered to the ground, finding a small puddle that was certainly not water.

Houjun kept his gaze purposefully anywhere else as he tugged at the sheet, letting the demon do as he would.

"Will I need to carry you?" Hikou asked as he began to tug on his pants as quickly as he could.

"No," Houjun said. "Can I borrow this sheet?" he asked after a moment. Hikou gave him a nod, looking over curiously. What could Houjun want a sheet for?

The monk leaned over to the side of the bed, plucking the prayer beads from the water they had rested in over the course of the evening. He shook them lightly to scatter droplets of water back to the puddles below. Houjun found the spells contained within the beads, the prayers to set off the magic within his mind.

But he found the teleportation spell that he had powered last night, as well. It was there; the possibility of escape, of fleeing this awkward and hurtful situation. He could leave! He could leave right now and no one could stop him. Not the demon, not anyone. He could go somewhere, somewhere safe...

But he didn't. His heart clenched at the sheer cowardice of the action he contemplated, and shame gripped his guts, shaking him for his thoughts. To think that a Suzaku shichiseishi would want to run from a situation he could not control. Not that he could say he hadn't done so in the past, when Miaka's life had been at stake-but this was different. It was only him at stake.

Only his life, only his innocence at risk here. And he now had little of the latter left. 

So the spell he released was only to transmute and transform. Where there had been a nude monk with only a sheet across his lap, there now sat a clothed monk, looking somewhat better with his wounds hidden. He had not chosen his monkly raiment, however; he wore a tunic of green, edged in olive, and pants that matched. 

Hikou blinked mildly at his now-dressed companion, his robes hanging open on his body. "Must come in handy," he quipped, before canting his head in curiosity. "Why didn't you do that earlier?" he asked.

"Didn't have the strength to," Houjun answered honestly. "It was why I was meditating, the night before. Recouping my energy." But he seemed to be considering another statement. He took his time, mulling it over with the demon's eyes still on him.

"You don't need to take me back," Houjun finally offered the demon--himself--an out to the possibly painful parting. "I've got enough power for a teleportation spell."

Hikou continued to dress as if he hadn't heard the monk, reaching for his tunic and shaking it out before sliding his arms into it. "I want to take you back," he finally said, as he tugged his belled sleeves through. 

Robes still open, allowing skin still showing the dark skin of a farmer's son to peek through, Hikou turned to face Houjun fully."I don't want to let go of you yet. And I want to be sure you'll be well," he elaborated, a smile that lacked any humor coming to his lips. 

The reaction Hikou received was not enthusiastic. A flicker of worry crossed the scarred face of the seishi, and he then gave a brief nod, blue bangs dipping down with the motion, only to flop back upward into their ridiculous cockatoo's crest.

"We shouldn't go to Mt. Leikauku," Houjun mused a loud. "Tasuki-kun has a history with demons, and he won't like you. And Mt. Taikyoku... anou, I'm not sure how Taiitsukun will take this... There's the palace, but..."

"If you're trying to figure out a place where I'll be welcome, don't bother," Hikou finally interrupted the monk's verbal meandering. "No offense, Houjun, but I'm not going to be welcomed with open arms anywhere. If you know a place to be, I'll take you there. I won't dally long." He paused, and then sighed, correcting his terseness. "Please. Don't limit your options for my own convenience."

But the damage had been done. With a single word, Houjun's mind was awhirl.

Dally.

He didn't want to dally long.

Dally-Dalliance. Isn't that what you did with a girl you didn't care about? Dally with them; a bit of fun, but no seriousness behind it? You dallied with girls you didn't care about...

Was this all a dalliance for the demon?

Hikou noticed the silence, but did not realize it's cause. "Houjun?"

"We'll go to Mt. Leikauku," Houjun said, abruptly longing for the security of his brother shichiseshi's fortress. "Tasuki will be able to take me in." 

He rose then, and paused, before bringing his hands up in a motion that seemed natural, ingrained into his morning routine. Long-fingered, farmer's hands, made rough by wielding staff and dancing through holy mudras, weaved through the air in three sharp yet graceful motions.

And then, in the air, outlined in red, was a fox-faced paper mask. It had a happy smile, and arched eyes that seemed to indicate that nothing could be wrong with the world. 

The mask fell gently into Houjun's outstretched palms as if it were meant to rest there. He paused, considering; should he go maskless? To Tasuki? That would surely betray everything on his open face, his readable gaze. He would give away all his secrets, his confusion and pain, with a look.

He had to wear the mask. He wanted to wear it. To hide everything once more. Life was safer, behind the mask. Lifting it to his face, it adhered perfectly to his features, seamlessly clinging to his skin and hiding his scar, his pain, his guilt, his grief.

When he looked at Hikou with those featureless, happy eyes, the demon's disapproval was obvious. 

Houjun didn't care. This was for the best.

"Ready whenever you are," the monk said, rising carefully. He was steady on his feet; his ribs still ached, but that was minor in the grand scheme of things. He could still stand and walk on his own. 

The demon nodded, and turning his face away as he reached up to rub at the back of his neck. The mask was punishment for his earlier blunder, Hikou was sure, but he did not comment on it. What was said was said, and he felt no need to correct or make amends for it.

"Come on," Hikou said, brushing away the discomfort he felt. He turned to face Houjun once more, and then offered his hand, his eyes settling on the face he could no longer read. 

Hikou waited there, hand outstretched, as Houjun considered the proffered palm. The smiling face gave nothing but what it was meant to give, and Hikou felt his ire rising at the unseen monk behind it. He couldn't tell if Houjun was refusing, considering, or nervous!

But then, it didn't just hide the pain, did it? It hid everything. It hid the truth.

But finally a warm hand slipped into his, and Hikou felt relief lift the weight of his frustration from his shoulders. Tapering fingers curled around Houjun's; the demon's were strangely delicate, and always had been. Houjun, in comparison, had fine farmer's hands: large, long-fingered, strong and dexterous. Made for hard work, carpentry, mending fences. 

But with Houjun's hand in his, Hikou tugged him closer as his wings spread from his back, casting a shadow on the other. "Thank you," he said.

And then the water began to rush about them. Abruptly rising and stirring about their ankles, it shot up around them in a pillar. Houjun's hand tightened about Hikou's as abrupt fear gripped him. Had Hikou tricked him? Was he going to kill him here, now that he'd gotten what he wanted? Had he misplaced his trust in the demon?

No. 

As abruptly as the water had roared up and around them, it was gone, and sunlight shone down on both demon and shichiseishi. Houjun's fingers were still tight about Hikou's in a vice like death grip, and the monk panted from fear. But after a tense moment he pried his fingers loose from around Hikou's, and stepped back, looking back and forth.

They were right before the main fortress. Hikou had brought them here without a second thought. Without even asking for spiritual directions, as it were. This was a disturbing thought. How much of his life was Hikou aware of?

But he never got the chance to question the demon about it. Instead, both found themselves interrupted by a battle cry that was disturbingly familiar.

"Lekka-"

It was Tasuki. And he was probably going to try to set Hikou on fire. While he didn't know quite what to feel about the demon or his situation with him, Houjun knew he couldn't let Hikou be set ablaze by a tessan-happy shichiseishi.

No matter that it made his ribs ache, Houjun jumped before the demon, waving his arms and hollering at the top of his lungs, "DON'T FLAME HIM, NO DA!" much to the shock of everyone involved.

"Shi-what?!" The voice abruptly cracked, and finally, the pair spotted a certain red-haired, amber-eyed bandit.He hung half out of a window, waving his iron fan in the air as it spit smoke and sparks and blackened his face in a magical backfire from the spell he hadn't completed. 

"What the fuck do you MEAN 'Don't flame him, no da'!?" the bandit hollered.

But before the pair on the ground could do more then blink at the display, the howling redhead leapt from the window, landing on his feet in a crouch before the pair with inhuman grace. He immediately straightened and began to scream at both of them.

"What the hell are you thinking!? You're just waltzin' up the HOLY mountain of Leikauku with a goddamned DEMON!" Tasuki huffed at the both of them, his amber eyes the only color in his still soot-blackened face. He shook his fist, he stomped his foot-it was a tantrum fit to shame any skilled two year old.

"Tasuki-kun," Houjun finally said, as the redhead took another breath to continue his tirade, "Stop. Calm down, no da. This is Hikou, no da. And he's..." The monk paused, searching for the right words to use. But he could find none. "He's a friend, no da."

"A demon," Tasuki intoned, looking at Hikou over Houjun's shoulder. The demon stared back, impassive despite the bandit's rage. "You're 'friends' with a demon."

"It's a long story, no da." 

Hikou and Tasuki stared at each other a moment, amber eyes to amber eyes, Tasuki's gleaming topaz to the smoldering embers of Hikou's gaze. Neither spoke, as a staredown commenced.

"Quiet fella," Tasuki finally said. "Let's hope he stays that way."

Hikou laughed, only causing the bandit to growl like a feral animal. But not wanting to incite confrontation, he quietly looked away, shaking his head in derisive amusement, leaving Houjun to act as damage control between the two men.

"Now, now, Tasuki-kun, no da!" The monk chided gently.

"I can't believe you brought him here," the bandit retorted, before he paused and turned around to look at Houjun more closely. The monk reached out and they clasped arms; between the two, auras intermingled, and Houjun seemed to draw strength from the bandit leader. Tasuki was the balefire of the mountain, the light at the peak, and his vitality was infectious. 

Not that this was really a bad thing for the wounded monk.

"Y' don't look so good, 'Chiri," Tasuki said, as they released one another. A glance was cast at Hikou, who watched on from the corner of his eyes. "S'at why ya came up here? Need a little fixin' up? Well, c'mon inside! We'll get ol' Daisuke-sensei ta patch ya up, good as new." 

He paused, before turning, and gave Hikou a narrow-eyed glance, eyes brimming with distrust. "Guess he can come inside," he finally acquiesced, after a moment's staredown between seishi and shittenou."If he can behave himself."

Houjun just sighed, glad that Hikou was silent behind them. At least he wasn't provoking Tasuki's ire-but Houjun could feel the loathing roll off the shittenou in thick waves. He hated Tasuki within moments of meeting him. Could it have been any worse?

Of course it could have. They could have killed each other immediately, rather then stewing in their immediate distaste for each other. At least now, they had a tenuous peace.

And so, Houjun and Tasuki walking side by side, Hikou lagging slightly behind them, they entered the bandit fortress. Houjun felt the swell of chi and magic flaring behind him, and didn't have to glance back to realize that Hikou had withdrawn his wings and was now pretending to be human. 

The shittenou still got looks from the bandits in the fortress, dressed as he was in rich silks fit to shame Hotohori's imperial court. Red and gold, the colors of the empire, were prominent in the ensemble, and they probably wondered if they two seishi were entertaining some sort of dignitary from the Court of the Phoenix.

Thus, they were able to traverse the fortress unmolested. Tasuki led them to a door with the symbol for well, 'Sho', carved into a door. It was the character that represented the constellation of Gemini, and the one that Houjun had been born to represent; Chichiriboshi. 

"Just as ya left it," Tasuki said, pushing the door open. 

While the two shichiseishi entered without pause, Hikou hovered in the doorway, his eyes scanning the room. A small bed for a single man, with a dresser against one wall. A small shrine sat atop the dresser, a rough desk was next to it. A wind chime hung near the window, jingling to facilitate the proper flow of ki throughout the room. It was small and homey, in its own way, if perhaps a bit cool for the demon's liking.

Houjun dropped to sit on the bed, visibly tired from the trek. Tasuki and Hikou found each other with identical expressions, frowning deeply with brows knitted fitfully. 

"Ya need t' rest," Tasuki spoke first. "I'll go see about a room for your... buddy. But me and you, we should have dinner t' night and talk."

The bandit didn't look at the demon to deliver his pointed snub. Hikou and Houjun both heard it, and Hikou bristled at the idea that this bandit would so obviously separate them. The dark-haired shittenou did not like the feelings it inspired; he'd been jealous before, and it had not been fun. He didn't want to go down that path again.

But he was jealous anyway.

Houjun opened his mouth to speak, but the bandit had already turned to push past Hikou's form in the doorway. Hikou watched him walk away, before entering in the room. He shut the door behind him.

"You were right," Hikou mused aloud. "He doesn't like me at all."

Houjun sighed, leaning back against the wall, glancing out the window set above the bed. "I knew that he would. But he tends to be... protective of me." No shadows touched the happy features of the mask that gave no indication of the man's true expression beyond it. "We are the last, and I think he fears losing any more people he cares for." 

The demon shrugged his shoulders and folded his arms across his chest, hands thrust into sleeves. "I feel his pain. Really." He turned from the man, the rigid set of his body radiating sullen irritation.

There was a quiet pause, before Houjun simply answered, "I am sure you feel no one's pain but your own. Else you would not be standing here as you are now."

He may have very well slapped the demon. He turned his head, blinking his amber eyes as he stared at the masked face. Happy eyes stared back, a permanent smile never leaving those lips he had claimed the night before. There should have been anger on that face. Recrimination. Something other than that damned mask.

But there should have been guilt, or at least anger on Hikou's. There was only surprise, however. And then, simply the coldness of the river.

"Nor as you are now, either, I'd wager," Hikou retorted, razors in his tone. He didn't wait for a farewell, or to offer one in return. He simply began to liquefy; color sapped from his body, till there was simply a gleaming, wet pillar that resembled a man. It burst outward with a splatter, yet only vanished, leaving the room and it's sole occupant alone and dry.

Houjun sighed softly, looking at where his one-night lover had once stood, then reached up to rub at his temples. The paper of his mask was rough under his fingers, and he found himself peeling it off as if in a dream. He cradled the mask in his hands. 

His face. 

His identity.

His shield.

Hands began to move together, the paper mask caught between. Tiny crinkles began to appear in the paper, getting larger and more numerous as he increased the pressure. He didn't stop until it was only a rumpled ball in between his large palms, held firmly together. His single eye was clenched tightly shut.

Houjun took a long, slow breath, and let it out. He could not find his center; he could not produce the calm of meditation. He was out of balance. He was out of focus. He was out of time.

With a flick of his wrist, the wadded-up mask was tossed onto the table. He took the prayer beads up and laid them with more reverence across the table, before standing up quietly and looking out to the window. He'd go meet Tasuki for that meal now, he decided.


	5. Sticky Like Honey

Love Lies Bleeding

Memories are just where you laid them,

dragging waters 'til the depths give up their dead.

What did you expect to find?

Was it something you left behind?

Don't you remember everything I said when I said:

Don't fall away, and leave me to myself.

Don't fall away, and leave love bleeding in my hands,

in my hands again;

leave love bleeding in my hands.

In my hands,

love lies bleeding.

'Hemorrhage (Love Lies Bleeding)',Fuel

The monk slept.

The last two days had been rough; Hikou's rapid departure and Tasuki's desire to know everything about the demon had left the shichiseishi of Gemini drained. He was unsure of what to feel about Hikou's abrupt exit. He was tired of Tasuki's questions.

After a meal of strong, spicy food--the region's specialty--he found himself tired. A slight unease to his stomach reminded him why it had been so easy for him to avoid strong tasting foods as a monk of Suzaku. Spicy meals aside, he found himself sluggish with weariness of body and soul, and so excused himself from Tasuki's company as politely as he could to rest.

He curled upon his small, cramped bed, and looked at the wind chime that hung above it. To the stars beyond it. He contemplated on them as he looked out his window, his eye slowly closing.

The night was so strangely comforting. Ebon arms cradled those tiny points of light. Was he not a star? Even a collection of stars, dedicated to Suzaku? He pondered on it as his eyelid shut, imagining himself kept in the dark's protective embrace.

One is rarely aware when they fall to sleep and when they begin dreaming. Houjun was no different. The darkness of the sky and the darkness behind his eyelid was one and the same. The arms that held him were no longer the insubstantial chill of the night, but flesh and blood.

The weight of a body, so warm, was above him. A human weight, though, not the extra mass of a man forged out of water, heavy with unnaturalness. He was warm; warmer then he had really been. But there he was, though Houjun did not look at him. His hair trailed over Houjun's face, and in its wake, the scar--the seal of his sin--erased like a faulty mathematical equation, no longer correct or relevant.

He opened his eyes.

Hikou smiled at him quirkily, his face that of the boy and not of the demon. He was all that Houjun could see; he was close enough to feel the wash of his breath against the monk's face, and so, beyond the darkness, nothing else could be seen.

Hikou leaned in and kissed the prone monk, his hands sweeping over his shoulders. And Houjun found himself responding automatically; lips parted, tongues tangled with an easy sensuality that their coupling had certainly not possessed. But it was the Houjun he could give the younger man.

But still, it trembled in him. It felt wrong. 

He loved Hikou. As a brother. Or perhaps, as a lover. But not as a partner. What did it matter, how he loved him, so long as he did? Here he was, offering freely of his flesh, even as Hikou's hands ran the length of him. 

Was it love?

What is love, anyway?

( -- Warm bodies, entangled, rocking against each other in a way they'd never done before, hands in hair, over skin, passion not of anger but of something else -- )

But was that really what he wanted?

The kiss broke. The weight atop him changed, the center of gravity dropping slightly. The body slimmed, hair growing longer. And slowly, Houjun's partner sat up. 

And there she was. 

"Kouran," Houjun found himself breathing. Seen as she might've been on their wedding night, straddling his hips. Her lavender hair tumbled down her shoulders, hid her breasts and tickled his skin where it brushed over his belly. Golden eyes were warm as she smiled, the coquette atop him, and seemed to invite him with her loving gaze. 

This is love. Take it.

His long-fingered hands reached for her, straining abruptly for the strength to lift and grasp. But he latched onto her arms, and held on tightly. It was not the action of a lover or fiancé. It was the action of a man drowning. 

She only giggled. Oh, you've caught me, her eyes said. What's a girl to do?

From demonic darkness to the light of a woman he'd so often put on a pedestal. His hands trembled on her, but still, he held on. 

He wanted to hold her.

He wanted to shake her.

He wanted... he wanted...

Did he want this?

Was this love?

Did love lie to him? Deceive him? He found himself staring at her in wide-eyed confusion. He did not notice that her eyes were somewhat narrower than before, or that her hair turned silver at the tips. He only saw her face, felt her weight.

Did love lie?

No! He didn't want to believe that. Somewhere within, he was still a child building sandcastles before high tide. He refused to believe that their parapets would be toppled, that their fortress would fall. He wanted to believe in love. He did.

But love had lied.

"Why?" he finally asked, voice hoarse. "Why didn't you tell me? Why didn't you come to me with the truth?"

He didn't want to believe that love had been a lie.

"Would you have hated him, Houjun?" she found her voice. It was sugary sweet, like honey. Honeyed like her eyes; amber hued, clingy, sticky.

Something else had been sticky, too. He couldn't get it off his skin. He could feel it now.

"No," he denied without hesitation. He wouldn't have submitted to hate. He wouldn't have. He would... He would...

He would have beaten the shit out of him and enjoyed every goddamn moment. The spatter of blood would have been wine, the break of bone its drinking music. He would have hated Hikou for the violation, for the shattering of trust, the attempt to ruin what was supposed to be the happiest day of his life. He would have hated him for that tiny thing stolen. He'd never kissed her; what right did Hikou have to be the first? He would have hated him just as he did at the river.

"Yes," came the broken admittance, his eyes closing. 

"Do you hate yourself for loving us?"

He let go of her arms, brought them across the face. If Hikou was the dark, and she was the light, Suzaku, please, strike him blind. It hurt. It burned. He didn't want to see anymore.

"Stop," he pleaded. "Stop."

She stopped. In fact, she did not move. She simply sat there astride him and watched with her honeyed gaze.

But the questions did not stop. From whence they came, he did not know. Inside? Outside? But still, they rang in his ears.

Could he blame Hikou for hating him?

No.

Would Hikou blame Houjun for hating him?

He didn't know.

Kouran--would she hate him for loving Hikou?

He didn't know.

What would she say?

Stop.

What would she think?

Stop.

To see her lover and her friend, entwined an satiated upon that small bed, limbs entangled. 

STOP!

Is love real, or is merely a prelude of hate?

Stopstopstopstopstop!

She was gone. He stood, disoriented and weeping, and his legs went out from under him. But there was arms there. Strong from farm work, lifting him up and pulling him close. A sharp chin found his shoulder. 

Hikou's breath was warm against his neck, his voice husky, "Do you want love?"

Houjun swallowed, even as he felt his body respond to the man's hands, warm around his torso at first, before moving as Hikou guided him. Was this love? Was love spawned from their hate? Or was this something different, something base and disgusting?

"No," he rasped. "No. I don't. I don't." This wasn't love. It was a pale facsimile. He wasn't worthy of the real thing. He'd killed it. Killed it with Hikou. Killed it with Kouran, punished by her family and drowned in her cellar like a rat, unable to flee from the floodwater. 

He killed it with his own two hands.

He began to weep, again, in Hikou's arms. The hands moved over his skin, and drew him near, heedless of his tears. "Suzaku," he breathed.

"What good is he, anyway?" Hikou asked, as he eased the limp-bodied shichiseishi down to somewhere soft. "What did you have in the end? Nothing."

Houjun's eyes cracked open to the sight of Hikou lowering himself atop the prone monk.

"Is a tool all that you are?" Hikou said, before he kissed him, hands parting his legs. "I'll protect you."

The monk sighed softly. To be protected, instead being the protector. To have his burden lifted. He relaxed now, never mind what Hikou was doing. He didn't care. It didn't matter. He disconnected from his flesh, even as he dimly felt an invasion, the demon-man's body above him, his mouth on his skin. 

His eyes closed and there was darkness again. He did not see anything but stars when he opened the unscarred eye again. The windchime gave it's soft, sweet music, and he listened. He felt tired. Everything in the room was peaceful and serene, just as when he had first closed his eye.

But he felt the stickiness. 

And he felt ashamed. 


	6. What Do You Want?

Love Lies Bleeding

Love Lies Bleeding

Memories are just where you laid them,

Dragging waters 'til the depths give up their dead.

What did you expect to find?

Was it something you left behind?

Don't you remember everything I said when I said:

Don't fall away, and leave me to myself.

Don't fall away, and leave love bleeding in my hands,

In my hands again;

Leave love bleeding in my hands.

In my hands,

Love lies bleeding.

Chapter 6

As the sun crested three days after the argument between the one-time lovers, it found Hikou, wings folded against his back and perched in a tree, calmer for his brief absence. He had positioned himself just so an hour before the sun began its trek into the sky, to watch the day at the fortress begin. 

The sun rose from behind the great fort--its gateway faced the east, the direction of the God of War, Seiryuu the azure dragon. It indicated that this was indeed a warrior's fort, and that they welcomed conflict.

They seemed ready for it as well. As dawn came, guards changed. And who came out to 'supervise', but the bandit-leader himself, flanked by his ever-present 'buddy', Kouji. The sun kissed the red-haired bandit's wild mane and spangled it with streaks of gold, and Hikou, for a moment, thought him a little more than just a dirty, filthy robber posing as a shichiseishi. 

The impression fled the moment Tasuki opened his big mouth.

"This is gettin' to be too fucking much," Tasuki said to Kouji, as they watched the other killers and cut-purses move to their positions. 

"You really aren't just gonna let him go, are ya, boss?" Kouji queried, even as he took up a lean against the wall.

Tasuki frowned, refraining from answering as his men positioned themselves. Once they were finished and he was satisfied, he turned back to his cohort and replied, "You know Chichiri, Kouji. Once he gets some crazy idea in his head, he goes with it. For the 'greater good' or some other fuckin' load of horse shit."

"But he's in no condition t' travel, Genrou," the blue-haired bandit added, called Tasuki by the nickname he had borne since he had joined the Leikauku clan.

"I know. But do you want t' sit on him and try and make him stay?" Tasuki snorted.

The other bandit shook his head. "No. That's your job, na?" Kouji's smirk was friendly enough. "Besides, I think this has somethin' to do with that damn thing that walked outta here. 

I'm a thing, am I,  Hikou chuckled inwardly, but made no sound. He wanted to hear the bandit's banter.

"No shit!" Tasuki all but blurted. "That sorry, soggy fuck! This is all his fault!" A fist was lifted, and pounded into the bandit's callused palm. "He did something to Chichiri! I'm sure of it!"

If they only knew, Hikou mused, as he finally slipped from his perch at the tree. Deciding against making a grand entrance, if just to prevent there being an outright attack upon his person, he chose the upfront approach: he simply stepped out of the shadows cast by the trees and began to walk up the path toward the great gates of the fortress. 

Kouji was the first to notice him; he looked up sharply, his brown eyes widening at the brazen demon coming up the walkway toward the gates. 

"Genrou!" he said sharply, before elbowing the red-head in the side. 

The motion was enough to get Tasuki's attention, and it found the water demon with wide eyes, which rapidly narrowed to venomous slits. 

"What the fuck are you doin', comin' back here?" Tasuki demanded. "This is a holy mountain, you fuckin' shit!" 

"I have come for Houjun," was Hikou's simple answer, and he enjoyed the way it seemed to gall the bandit-until it seemed that it wasn't gall, but confusion.

"Who the hell is Houjun?" Tasuki growled.

"I think he means Chichiri," Kouji suggested helpfully.

Tasuki paused a moment, and then blurted, "I knew that!"

Both Hikou and Kouji favored the seishi with a long look as they sweatbeaded slightly: Sure you did.

But before either Tasuki could rant, or Hikou could sneer, Kouji interrupted the staring with a question: "Just what do you want with Chichiri, anyway?"

Tasuki was quick to leap on this with a rousing, "Yeah! You're a demon! He's a monk!

The bandit paused, and then eyed Kouji a moment. "Still." 

Tasuki paused again, and this time eyed Hikou. "I think."

Hikou sighed softly, and opened his mouth to speak, only to be interrupted by the opening of a door in the great gates to the fortess. The man they were just arguing about had just stepped into the middle of their argument.

Three sets of eyes turned to the monk as he stood there, blinking at the collection of people on the doorstep of the lair of the bandits. Faced with the tension already in the air, the monk stopped in midstep. He remained in the door way within the gates and simply stared at the three men staring at him in turn.

"Ohayo!" Chichiri finally greeted the group with a heavy dose of false cheer. He smiled slightly, only to have the expression wiped right off his face when Tasuki planted himself firmly before his brother seishi.

"Just what the fuck do you think you're doin'?!" Tasuki began his lecture. "You're beat to shit an' you think you're just gonna walk outta here, like this?! You can't even hold your staff in the right hand!" 

"I have a promise to keep, no da."  His gaze flickered briefly to Hikou before returnng to Tasuki. "I have been delayed two weeks already, and I am expected, no da. They'll worry about me, no da. I don't want anybody to fret, na no da!"

Hikou watched with detatched interest as Tasuki's brows furrowed and the two men engaged in a brief, intense face off-until the fist was swung. 

All eyes widened as Houjun abruptly doubled over with a woof of breath, curling over Tasuki's fist as it contacted solidly with his bruised stomach. He choked and gagged once, but wasn't given any time to really gasp for air as Tasuki plucked him up in his arms. The bandit cradled him against his body like he might a child, and carefully began to take him inside.

The urge to simply fill the red-haired seishi's lungs with water and make them burst was suddenly in Hikou's heart, choking off his reason, until he realized Kouji was speaking to him.

"Genrou's just doin' what's best, so don't get your trousers in a twist!" came the harsh reprove from the scarred bandit for the glare of death that was still boring into Tasuki's back. "Chichiri would probably get his fool self killed if he went out like he is now! So why don't we all just go inside, be real nice for a little while, and sit on him till he recuperates, an' then you and him can go your merry way?"

A moment passed between the two men before Hikou finally nodded, stepping into the doorway behind the scarred bandit. They moved to catch up to Tasuki, who was headed for the door with the kanji for 'sho' on the doorway. He kicked the door open and strode in with the collapsed monk, and then laid him gently across his bed. 

Houjun struggled to breathe, coughing harshly as he promptly tried to curl in a fetal ball against the pain and found that cracked ribs did not agree with that course of action.

Tasuki whirled to find himself face to face with Hikou. 

He hollared once, and then demanded, "Who the hell let you in!?" A moment later, the only possible answer came to him, and he bellowed out, "Kouji! I'm gonna feed ya yer boots! You stupid fuck!" 

Kouji was safely behind the demon and outside the room, so the threat was rather moot.

However, Tasuki was not through. He glared at Hikou for a long moment, before he began to give orders.

"You're gonna make sure he'll stay put!" he said. "You stay here with him, till he's well! An' I don't wanna see you anywhere else but THIS ROOM!"

Hikou's hands lifted in mock submission, and he obeyed simply to spite the temperamental seishi. Tasuki expected him to disobey. Hikou decided that obedience would make him all the more upset.

"No problem," Hikou said.

Tasuki deflated slightly. Hikou had not given him defiance, and acceptance was not something he had been prepared to deal with. And so instead, he simply pushed his way past the demon. 

Kouji and Tasuki departed, leaving Hikou with the gasping monk. Finally entering the room fully, Hikou shut the door behind him, and then moved towards the bed, his robes whispering slightly around his steps. 

Houjun was not one to stay down long, he noted, as the monk curled his broken arm around his belly and tried to push himself up on his good one. The limb visibly trembled with the strain, stirring the rough linen of his sleeve.

Hikou couldn't stand there any longer. He reacheed out to help him sit up, Houjun never protesting once. 

Once Houjun had a pillow behind his back and was upright, he looked up at Hikou, his single eye seeming to weigh his options. On one hand, he was terribly wounded. On the other he had to get to Kutou. 

As he watched him make these choices, Hikou could not simply stand by and allow him to think that he'd be allowed to go anywhere in his condition. He was broken and bruised, and Hikou was going to put a stop to this right now. He would heal. That's why the demon had brought him here.

"Don't even thnk about it," Hikou's voice was firm, and it crushed both Houjun's hopeful expression and any thoughts of leaving. 

"Who made you my mother?" Houjun asked with a sliver of irritablity worming its way into his tone.

Hikou's brow quirked, but he gave no answer, simply folding his arms over his chest. He watched his brother-turned-lover's expression for a long moment; the lines of his face were more pronounced, and there were bags beneath his good eye. 

"Have you been sleeping poorly?" Hikou asked, his tone betraying no concern. 

"Yes," Houjun said flatly, turning his face from Hikou. 

"You know," Houjun said after a moment's silence, "I wish I'd never thrown that mask away." Ignoring the way Hikou's brow arched or the briefly curious glance the demon gave, Houjun continued, "Then none of you would know, and I wouldn't have to deal with this false concern."

"Ah," said Hikou. "This is what it is. May I remind you, however, that no one took that mask from you. I didn't even take it from your at the riverside. You took it off to look at me with your true face. You only put it on again to face your seishi brother. I never forced your hand with it."

Houjun said nothing in reply.

Hikou moved quietly before him, before kneeling before Houjun's bed with a rustle of cloth, his amber eyes glittering as they searched the monk's expression.

"Is that what you think?" Hikou asked, after a moment. "That we don't care?"

Houjun said nothing for a long moment, but once the agonizing seconds dragged out he replied, "What am I supposed to think? I don't know what we're doing, what's going on, or even why we're here together like this!"

Cool hands, oddly feminine in their slenderness and delicacy, reached out to cup Houjun's face, gripping his chin and forcing him to look at Hikou. The demon held his face in his hands steadily, and brought his gaze to Houjun's. Hikou's expression was that of dire seriousness, as if he were about to impart some great secret. 

"I think you want me not to care," Hikou said, his voice low. "I think you would rather I used you. Then it can mean nothing, and you can be a victim, and go on pretending that there was nothing between us other than what I wanted from you." The demon's hands tightened, tremors running down his arms as he continued, "That isn't so. That isn't it at all."

"If you're not using me," Houjun asked as an edge entered his tone, "just what do you want from me?" 

Surprised, Hikou blinked. He hadn't considered his desires, truly, in this. What did he want from the man before him, whose face he cupped in his hands? His mouth opened, closed, and he seemed lost for a moment, searching for an answer.

"I don't know," Hikou finally answered. "No. I do. I... I want you to let it go, Houjun..."

The monk's single eye blinked rapidly, as noncomprehension writ itself across his scarred features. 

"Let it go?" Houjun asked. "What do you mean, 'let it go'?"

"This!" Hikou released Houjun's face, only to wave impatiently at his face, his scars. "All of it. The penitence and the guilt and suffering and the pain..." The demon took a deep breath, and looked at the monk intently. "I want you to let it go."

Houjun's no comprehension was obvious, as he slowly shook his head. He didn't understand.

Hikou would make him understand.

Hikou reached out to and pressed his fingers to the scarred eyesocket that was the physical reminder of his sin. 

"Let it go," he said. 

Covering his hand with his billowing sleeve, Hikou half-rose so that he cloud grab at the prayerbeads that lay on the table beside Houjun's bed. He pressed them quickly into Houjun's good hand, and then looked up at Houjun's scarred face, as if trying to communicate through only his gaze what he meant.

"Let it go," Hikou urged. "All of this! Just let it all go!"

Silence reigned between them, as Houjun visibly wrestled with this concept for a moment. His gaze flickered over Hikou's intense visage, and then to where his prayer beads lay on his night stand, and then to where the mask had been thrown. 

"But why?" Houjun finally blurted. "I don't understand! My sin against you gives you anything you ask of me! My blood, my life, my flesh, whatever it is, it's yours! But you want... want me to let go of my pain?"

"Yes!" Hikou answered explosively, hands flying up with a flutter of billowing sleeves. "Yes," he said more gently. "Let it go. I want you to let it go. None of this shit, poisoning you, anymore. And maybe, just maybe... if you can find peace, then I can too."

Houjun stared at him for a moment; Hikou could detect the slightest trembling that took Houjun as he watched the monk. But before Houjun could answer Hikou, the demon was speaking again.

"For a long time, I hated you. I plotted and I planned, Houjun, I did. And then, when I finally got to you, I... all my plans, they all fell to dust. I don't think I know what I'm doing anymore." Suddenly sheepish, Hikou reached up to scratch at the back of his neck, looking away. "I don't think you do either. But I could be wrong." 

Houjun's head drooped, and he was silent still, taking in Hikou's words. He remained there, simply trembling until he found his voice again. 

Then, the words could not be stopped.

"I tried," he said softly, "For so long... to deal with it. It ..." He paused, and took a breath, before exhaling it in a rush. "Everything was gone. The monks that found me took me in. They never asked questions, they accepted me unconditionally. Taught me things... about... about serving one's dharma and finding peace. But they knew I was restless, and couldn't be bound to a temple. So they let me wander. And that gave me nothing, either. This ... Nirvana was still unreachable. I couldn't get it with both hands!" Couldn't let anything go. And I don't... I just..." 

Houjun took another moment to gather his thoughts, before saying, "I became a monk to find peace. To find some salvation, cleanse myself of sin. I thought, if I dedicated myself to my vocation. If I did well, I could find some peace. And it never happened. It wasn't until..." He swallowed hard, and then coughed once, now bordering on hiccuping sobs.

Hikou finally moved from from before the monk, till he could get up on the bed, and sit beside him; he did not speak or move too close. He simply allowed himself to be a physical presence. Houjun was purging himself to the person Hikou thought mattered most in this case: The man he had done wrong. He would be further damned if he did not listen.

"I found some solace with Miaka-sama," Houjun finally said, once he could continue. "It was something... I didn't want to be a seishi, at first, but then I realized it was my only chance to do something right. And so much was on a group of eight people. The fate of nations!" He laughed once, strangled, high-pitched, and unnatural. "And most of them were just kids. And they all died. All but Tasuki and Tamahome, and he went to be with Miaka."

Houjun stopped, and shook his head and sighed out, "We saved the world, Hikou." His gaze finally lifted to the demon's visage, tracing his impassive features. "But through it all, you were never far. Your ghost was just behind me, and K-K..." He could not finish Her name, it seemed. "You were always with me. Reminding me of why I was doing this. Oh, gods, you may be a demon now, Hikou, but you were a spectre to me long before I saw you at the riverside."

"I know," Hikou acknowledged, reaching out slowly. His touch was hesitant, but he wanted to draw the monk into his arms. Fortunately, Houjun did not resist his embrace, but slowly leaned against his shoulder, his sobs quieting slightly. 

"We won, Hikou," Houjun murmured softly, once he was in the shitenou's arms. "In the end we did what we were supposed to do... And we have nothing to show for it. Four dead young men. A kingdom with a child-emperor and a silent dowager empress. Eiyou is a City of the Dead. War ravaged countries... one frustrated bandit who's scared to death he's going to be alone... and me. And I have no idea what to do, and... and my dharma as a seishi was fulfilled. So... if I did what I was supposed to, why am I not yet at peace?"

It took him this long to answer Hikou's question. A rambling catharsis that only made sense once he began to say, "I spent all this time grieving for you, punishing myself for my sins... and now, here you are, and you... you want me to let it all go. Finally... let it go." He reached up, brushing his hand through his short hair. "And I don't know how I can accept that, or what it means, or...what I would do. Everything has been for penance. Everything." He blinks dimly, dark eye searching the sheepish demon's face, as if he might find hidden meaning there. "And... I... I don't know what I'm supposed to do. Everything was laid out for me for so long... as a monk, as a seishi... the idea of just doing something because I want to is foreign." 

Houjun looked up at Hikou, his burgundy eye bloodshot from his harsh tears. "What do I do now?" 

The demon sighed softly against Houjun's short hair, and then murmured, "Let it go, Houjun. Find a new path. I know you can do it."

Houjun had no immediate answer; he simply leaned against his one-time lover and closed his eyes. 

"I'm so tired, Hikou... But if I let it go, what will anchor me?" he asked softly.

"I will," the demon answered, and it seemed to satisfy them both for the time being.


	7. Nighttime Temptations

_Love Lies Bleeding _

**Memories are just where you laid them,**

**Dragging waters 'til the depths give up their dead.**

**What did you expect to find?**

**Was it something you left behind?**

**Don't you remember everything I said when I said:**

**Don't fall away, and leave me to myself.**

**Don't fall away, and leave love bleeding in my hands,**

**In my hands again;**

**Leave love bleeding in my hands.**

**In my hands,**

**Love lies bleeding.**

**`Hemorrhage (Love Lies Bleeding)', Fuel**

The demon and the monk stayed together two days; two days of forced rest and recuperation. Two days of glares from the red-haired bandit. Two days of tension, threatening to make the demon grip at his thick, midnight-blue locks and tear at his scalp. Two days too long.

But, as he watched his companion sleep, he reasoned that it was all his fault anyway. He'd gone with his original plan of attempting to beat his one-time best friend to death, finding satisfaction in the crunch of his bones and the tears in his flesh. But in the end, his heart betrayed him, as it had done so often before.

Then, they were here. And he was beginning to hate it. The monk couldn't help it, but oh, gods! The desire to murder every last miserable, filthy, stinking, drunken, whoring bandit in the fortress made his fingers twitch and his mouth dry.

The desire to take Houjun till he screamed himself raw to work off this agression was also there, but not as prevalent. It was sad to say, but Hikou prefered murder to sex in some instances. 

Besides, sex with Houjun while he was still an invalid wouldn't have been much fun. Their first encounter had been rushed and not very satisfactory, but it couldn't be helped. He had to cement the bond between them, seal it with his kiss, with the living man's seed in his mouth. Something to show Houjun that it was real. Something to mark him as Hikou's. 

The memories made him shift uncomfortably on his small bed; they had moved a cot for him to rest within Houjun's room and take care of him. However, it only really served to keep Hikou near Houjun and taunt him with the pale flesh of the monk's body, sprawled out on his bed. 

Houjun slept innocently. His head turned, blind eye against the pillow. One arm was slung over his chest as it rose and fell with his breath, and the other was up by his head, hand curled into a loose fist and resting on his pillow, not far from his head. 

He hadn't changed his sleeping habits in a decade. 

Hikou finally gave in as he saw the monk twitch, and rose from his bed. It wouldn't hurt to touch him while he slept, would it? Not at all. He would simply edge down the covers a little, and then lay a hand over his heart, feeling the strong, steady beat of the living man's blood through his body.

Houjun stirred not; his body was still. 

It wouldn't hurt, Hikou decided, to let his fingertips trail over his lean belly, then, and trace the fine scars that a life of hardship had left on the monk. 

Houjun twitched once, belly rolling slightly under the teasing touches of the demon's featherlight hands. 

If he wouldn't wake, Hikou thought as he cast all pretense of innocence aside, the monk would miss all the fun. The ties to his trousers were loosened, the flaps laid back, the loincloth beneath tugged at. 

Houjun began to stir a lot more. 

Hikou had to work fast. Even as the monk began to yawn and mumble incoherently, awakened by his disrobing, he was still groggy and unaware of what was happening. 

At least, Houjun was unaware until Hikou had swept back the covers and leaned over his belly, holding his soft member and began to gently kiss his ballsac.

That woke Houjun up fairly quickly. A strangled noise escaped the monk's throat, and his eye blinked rapidly, trying to clear the sleep from it. He shifted, arms flailing as he tried to grab the bed, and then found purchase in handfuls of silk.

"Hikou," was his strangled gasp, his eyes widening as he felt the man's tongue lathe acoss his sensitive flesh. Houjun sat up just to pitch backward again, gasping sharply.

The arousal took Houjun entirely by surprise; Hikou's skilled mouth (where did he learn this, anyway?) was all over, turning him hard without much work. When had it become so easy for his flesh to engorge? Since he'd tasted the proverbial fruit on the vine, had he acquired a liking for it? Or did his body simply respond to stimulus before his mind had a chance to be repulsed?

It didn't matter now; Hikou's legs swept up and straddled his waist, and he bent over the man's groin and lavished it with his attention.

Houjun found his hips rocking, the demon's palms pressing against their points, refusing to allow him to move with him. He was dominated. He was controlled. 

He was about to have a mind-blowing orgasm.

He lifted his fist and bit on his knuckles to keep the shriek from escaping his throat as he shuddered and bucked. His eye clenched shut, and ever muscle in his body went taut before turning to so much jelly as he slumped to the bed again.

Hikou turned his head, wiping at his mouth, before he leaned over the bed.

"Don't you -dare- spit that on the floor," Houjun gasped, outraged.

Hikou coughed on what he had been about to do, before making a plaintive face, mouth still full. He all but begged the monk with his gaze--but found no mercy there. He then turned his head and spat into his hand... and then stopped, and looked down between them. 

Houjun, thinking Hikou was done, relaxed slightly against the bed... before he felt sticky hands on his member again, and then sliding down. 

Hikou's voice reached his ears, urging him gently, "Relax."

And then there was a slick finger working it's way into what had formerly been an exit, not an entrance.

A rude squawk and a rough smack was delivered to Hikou's back.

"Just what the hell do you think you're doing?" Houjun squeaked as he wriggled.

"Prepping you," Hikou said softly. "Because I'm either going to have you, or I'm going to go mad and slaughter the bandits."

Houjun froze. 

Hikou glanced back over his shoulder, frowning, "I was speaking figuratively, Houjun." But that glimmer to his eyes said otherwise.

Houjun didn't have time to retort--he was still being subjected to that finger worming it's way into his body and he stuggled against it, muscles tightening like a vise. 

"Oi! Give me back my finger!" Hikou protested.

"Glady! Now stop poking me in rude places!" Houjun demanded in a harsh whisper. 

Hikou wasn't seriously thinking that he was going to be used like a woman, was he? Houjun's eye all but bugged out of his head as the demon rose and began to strip, hand glistening wet with his seed and Hikou's saliva in the dark. 

"Saa... Do you have any tanning oil?" Hikou asked as silks were discarded. "Do the bandits?"

"How the hell should I know?!" Houjun said, trying to scramble for his sheets, which he'd kicked in his fitful slumber to the foot of the bed. He pulled them up, even as Hikou got himself down to simply his under-robe and his trousers.

"Oil will work better. I'll be right back!" And with that said, Hikou slunk out into the dark. 

Houjun made quick work, getting his pants back up and his sheet around his body, sitting up in his bed and looking like a child just roused from a nightmare. Just what had Hikou thought he was doing, anyway? 

The demon returned in short order, with a metal pot in hand. He put it beside the bed, and then continued to strip. 

"You know, you could... ask before molesting me in the middle of the night!" Houjun didn't know what else to say. The first words that came to him, he spoke. His dark brows furrowed as he glared at the demon who ignored his irritation. "And you're not setting a hand on me again tonight."

Hikou's eyes burned like balefire in the dark, as he turned his smoldering glance to the monk. He turned and went to the door. 

The lock clicked shut with a tinny noise. 

Houjun thought it best to be quiet. He'd never seen Hikou like this before, a creature of his desires. He'd been slower, even gentle with him in the cave. But now he was simply following his lusts.

Seeing him stand there, now stripped and his chest heaving with his breathing (unnatural; did he really need to breathe?), Houjun was struck with the desire to remain silent.

The lid was pried off the jug of oil, and Hikou gripped his own erection; his other hand dipped into the fluid, getting a palmful, before he looked to Houjun. 

"Please," he finally rumbled, as he leaned over to put his hands on the bed. His greased erection bobbing between his legs; the damn thing was nigh hypnotic Houjun found. There was a strange fascination with seeing another man's arousal that he could not place. Had he gone completely ecchi? Okama? 

He shook his head violently, resisting, before he felt Hikou's oiled hands sliding over his chest, over his shuolders, dragging him forward to be kissed hard. The demon was awake and hungry, and Houjun's mouth was his meal. 

Hikou's tongue, as slippery as his hands, slipped inside Houjun's mouth and teased at the monk's tongue. He touched him wherever he could reach, not allowing him an avenue of escape. He had to kiss. He had to be touched.

The sheet was torn from his grasp, and one hand solidly pushed him back against the bed, breath rushing from his lungs. And then he squawked again as he felt his breeches gripped and tugged roughly down till they were off, and his loincloth torn away, till he was bare as he could be. 

Hikou propped himself above him, hands to either side of Houjun's head as he forced another kiss on him. But as he lifted his head, Houjun's words froze Hikou in his tracks.

"Hikou, you're scaring me." 

It was as if a balloon filled with the demon's ardor had a sword shoved through it; it simply burst and went flat, and the demon's erection drooped in accordance. 

"Houjun..." Hikou's voice was raw, and this time his kisses were more gentle. "I can only be so good, Houjun. I am a demon. And while I try, I must..." He shuddered above the monk. "I have to have something. Every dog must be tossed a bone, Houjun!"

Houjun looked up at his brother-turned-lover, and then reached up to cup his face. "Shush," he murmured softly. "It... It'll be alright, Hikou. You just can't... seriously think I'll lay back and do whatever you want!"

"Didn't you say your flesh was mine?" Hikou snapped lowly. His hands, still slick with oil, now moved over Houjun's chest again.

They wemt down over his belly to grasp at his member, slicking it down, mingling saliva and semen and oil. 

"Didn't you?" Hikou growled as he stroked.

"Didn't you say that you wanted me to let it go? That it was it, wasn't? Your desire--release," Houjun reminded him, even as he tried to keep his voice steady. 

The pair stayed in their positions for a moment, until Hikou's head dropped, his cheek brushing against Houjun's. The demon's hand opened, and Houjun's limp and sticky manhood was released. 

"I need you," Hikou murmured roughly. "Please. I won't ask again. But I will leave for a time."

Houjun was silent a moment, his body trembling beneath the demon's.

"Alright."

Hikou's head lifted at the single word the Suzaku Seishi had spoken. 

"Alright?" Hikou repeated, for his own benefit.

"Yes. It's alright," Houjun said. "I... Just want to be with you as a man, Hikou. Not you as a demon." His brows furrowed, and his voice strengthened. "I know there's a man inside you, somewhere. A part of you is still human. I wouldn't stay here with you otherwise."

Hikou's mouth worked, but no words came out for a time, as he tried to grasp the insight Houjun had given him. 

The callused palms of Houjun's hands closed around Hikou's face, tracing over the fine cheekbones and sharp jaw. 

"Let it go," Houjun said softly. "And find peace."

"Let it go," Hikou repeated. What he had asked of Houjun; for the monk to let it go. Now, he had to do the same.

Slowly, his body lowered, until he was cradled against Houjun's chest, listening to the rapid, thumming beat of his heart. 

"I scared you."

"Yes."

"I'm sorry."

"It happens," Houjun reassured. "Now. Rest here with me. Another time, we'll take this step. Not here, but sometime soon. Just... not yet. Can you be the man that long for me?"

"I'll try," the demon said roughly, burying his face in the smooth flesh of his companion's neck. "I'll try."

"Good. That's all I can ask."

The two remained awake, in silence, for some time after. Sleep did not come easily to either.


	8. Floodplain

**Angst and Spoilers Ahoy: This chapter has massive spoilers for Chichiri's Gaiden novel. If you haven't read it or its summaries, you're going to basically get a HA-YUGE chunk of it ruined. Proceed at your own risk.******

**Love Lies Bleeding**

**Memories are just where you laid them,**

**Dragging waters 'til the depths give up their dead.**

**What did you expect to find?**

**Was it something you left behind?**

**Don't you remember everything I said when I said:**

**Don't fall away, and leave me to myself.**

**Don't fall away, and leave love bleeding in my hands,**

**In my hands again;**

**Leave love bleeding in my hands.**

**In my hands,**

**Love lies bleeding.**

**'Hemorrhage (Love Lies Bleeding)', Fuel**

"So. You're leaving."

The pair stood before each other, amber eyes staring into a single burgundy orb in a maimed face, as the wolf tried to intimidate the fox into staying.

Tasuki bristled visibly as the stare-down continued.

"You really think you're gonna walk all the fuckin' way to Kutou?"

Chichiri was calm. "Yes, no da."

"You're not!" Tasuki protested. 

"I am," the monk finally replied, adjusting the tilt of his straw kasa upon his head. "I really cannot dally any longer, no da. I am almost a month late for my visit, no da. Kouran and Shuusei-san are no doubt having kittens by now, no da. I really cannot keep them worrying about me forever, no da."

Despite the matter-of-fact way Chichiri made his statement, Tasuki seemed to want to punch holes in it. But the monk stood firm in the face of the bandit's ire. 

"Fine!" Tasuki finally gave in with an explosive breath. "Fine! Go on, then." 

The bandit moved around the monk as he stood there; Chichiri was waiting for him to move, and the path to doorway cleared. Tasuki simply waved one hand irritably as he went around the other man, as if urging the monk to his journey despite his vehement protests.

"Don't let the door hit your ass on the way out, Chichiri!" was Tasuki's final farewell. 

Chichiri sighed. Nothing ever went as planned anymore. 

Without a backward glance, the monk headed out the door. He knew Kouji was watching this scene somewhere in the shadows, but was certain that Tasuki would eventually get over his anger. He'd just have to realize that Chichiri had duties to other people, even if he did not approve of how Chichiri saw them through.

He refused to think too much about it, however, as sunshine and cool spring air greeted him. His lungs swelled as he took a deep breath, filling them with the clean, outdoor air. It was good to be out of the fortress, he thought, as he headed down the winding path. 

He would walk tonight, he decided as he went around the bend. Walk until evening came, then camp out under the stars. In the morning, if he felt up to it, he would consider cutting his travel time with a spell to cross the remaining distance. It was, after all, quite a journey he was undertaking. Mt Leikauku rested between Konan and Sairou. The Shouryuu village, on the other hand, was on the otherside of the mountains that divided Konan and Kutou. 

He mused further on his travels, as he walked, keeping other thoughts at bay: he did not want to think Tasuki's ire, Hikou's erratic behavior. He didn't want to think about Hikou at all, in fact.

A shudder ran down his back as the demon's cool touch was remembered, unbidden by his heart. The voice that accompanied the thought of the demon was far more real, however, than the ghostly hand he felt over his skin.

"You didn't wait for me."

Chichiri whirled, his cloak fluttering with the clumsy turn, to find the demon he was just trying not to think about standing on the path not far behind him.

Questions blurred through his mind. When had Hikou arrived? Why had he not sensed it? He swallowed them all, and instead replied to the demon's 'greeting'.

"It has been two days. I couldn't wait any longer." A wry smile touched the monks lips. "And I know you can find me, no matter where I go. You found me easily enough the first time, didn't you?" 

A smirk to mirror Chichiri's found its way to Hikou's lips, though it was somehow harsher than the monk's expression. 

"It is good you understand that," Hikou said as he walked towards the monk. "But you asked what I wanted and you know it was to be with you. So...are we to travel, then?"

Chichiri only gave a moment's pause before nodding quietly. "Hai. We shall be heading to Kutou. I'm sure meeting Shuusei may be something of a shock to you, though. He could be your twin."

The demon shrugged noncommittally. He seemed to care not about the man that Chichiri described, and simply his place at the monk's side. 

Chichiri looked Hikou over a moment, seeking something in his face, his eyes. Some clue of what he was feeling, how he felt about traveling with his one-time lover. There was nothing.

"Do you mind us walking cross-country?" Chichiri asked. 

"No," Hikou answered succinctly. 

A moment of silence lingered between them. Did he really want to walk all that way, alone, with the demon? He was distinctly uncomfortable with dealing with the demon's lusts, alone in the woods. Oh, Hikou had said he would respect his wishes, yes, but that didn't alleviate his discomfort all the same. The more he thought about it, the less he liked it, and the less comfortable he was walking before the demon. 

"Would you rather us go the quick way?" Chichiri abruptly suggested.

"Teleport, you mean?" Hikou asked.

Chichiri nodded. 

The demon seemed to muse on this as they continued to walk, and then turned his glowing gaze to Chichiri's form. He inspected it, as if seeing how healthy the monk was.

"Can you handle it? Are you well enough now?" Hikou asked with deliberate caution. "If not, I don't tire much. I can walk."

Chichiri's heart sank. He tried not to think about what Hikou's lack of natural fatigue would mean in other realms as well, and instead simply decided to assure the demon he could cast his spell with no difficulty.

"It'll be easy now. I'm fully rested, and I've got plenty of energy." Chichiri tried to give his most reassuring smile.

Hikou seemed unconvinced, but then rolled his shoulders in a weak shrug and said, "It's your choice." 

"We'll teleport then," Chichiri said, as he stopped, turning to face the demon.

In his mind's eye, Chichiri could see Hikou reaching for his hand, in those cold limestone caves where the water had been the only witness to their misguided, unhappy passions. They were leaving the cave, leaving that pit of sin, to go to the mountain of Leikauku. 

He mimicked it on a whim, extending a single hand for the demon to take. 

The glance to the extended and palm and the twist to his features said: I did this once. But Hikou did not seem angry. Instead, amused irony graced his sharp features. 

His hand slid over Chichiri's, till his fingers curled about the monk's palm.

Hikou smirked. Chichiri smiled.

Crimson sprang up around them, lapping over Chichiri's body before spreading out in a bubble of liquid flame. It flowed like water over them, warmed like a bonfire, and consumed both of them within it's conflagration of bloody, violent red despite its relatively gentle warmth.

There were words whispered, lost to either's ears, but both saw the other's mouth move. And then--they were gone. Displaced. Unlike Hikou's teleportation, Chichiri's was far gentler and easy on the body and soul. One moment the rough mountain road was beneath their feet, and the next they were up to their ankles in mud.

Mud?

Chichiri wobbled slightly as he felt the ground that was supposed to be solid shift and squelch nosily beneath him. He turned from Hikou with a jerky motion, and then scanned the land he had brought them to.

A single tree stood solitary by the river; he knew it well. Here he had deflected the flooding Shouryuu River, which had once destroyed his own village, and saved a pair of lovers. It was the same pair of lovers who married with his blessing not a month later, and had named their firstborn son for him.

Chichiri's gaze tracked down the swelling river, down its banks, toward the village that lay on its shores. The flood had overwhelmed the village. He could spy toppled homes, tents, people milling about smeared with mud and filth.

And then he was screaming. 

"Ou Kenmin! Ryuu Shuusei!" The names ripped free from his throat as he sped away, leaving Hikou in stunned silence behind him. 

"Kouran!" That name left most painfully of all. 

He didn't hear Hikou calling his name behind him. He did not feel the splatter of rain against his skin, dampening his bangs against his brow, slicking his pony tail against his shoulders. He couldn't even hear his own voice, over the thunder of blood in his ears.

He slipped and fell, only to propel himself into a run once he got to his feet. If Hikou followed, he knew not or cared not. He had to get into the village. He had to find his friends.

The townspeople noticed him, as noisy as he was. He stopped only for a moment once within the village proper, and grabbed the first villager to cross his path and demand answers. 

"Kouran? Shuusei?" 

No one knew. Heads shook.

"Headman Ou Kenmin?" 

All pointed toward the once-proud home of the village leader and the father of Ou Kouran. He'd once shown Chichiri great kindness; his daughter had pulled him from the river after he'd tried to join Hikou and Kouran in death and Ou Kenmin had taken him in without question or hope of reward. But neither of his rescuers would give up hope on him: Kenmin taught him the value of his destiny, and Kouran had taught him the value of his own life. Without them and the lessons they taught him he would never have survived his grief.

He had to find them now. He could not rest until he knew they still lived.

Chichiri ran for the house. He found it with a broken door half off its hinges, reeking of illness and death. Only now did he slow; trepidation and apprehension gripping his heart. 

Shaking hands pushed the door open and he crept inside, quiet like a thief and feeling just as guilty.

The sitting room had been gutted, fine furniture ruined and book cases overturned. Rare volumes were now waterlogged and spoiled, delicate paper drying slowly, swelling the books into bloated mockeries of their former beauty.

Chichiri turned into the hall, heading further into the house. The scent of rotting wood, pregnant with disease, assaulted his senses. But he pressed on. 

He found Kouran's room was empty, and had not seen an occupant in some time. Things had been knocked over, and the bedding was sodden with water and still damp. He moved deeper within the house.

He hesitated before the closed door to Kenmin's quarters. His hand lifted, no matter that it trembled, and pressed against the wet wood. He needed only to push it open to see if Ou Kenmin was inside, still alive!

But still he paused. His hands trembled, even half lifed, like flightless birds before the maw of the cat that would devour them. He could not move forward or back; he was too caught up in the fear that the room could be empty, that Kenmin could be dead, that this could be all for naught, that he did not come in time--

A hand, warm and living, touched his shoulder and jolted him from the fears that held him. He jumped in shock at it, and turned his head to find Hikou looming behind him. 

Chichiri simply stared at the demon for a moment, before realizing that Hikou had cast the spell that enabled him pass as human, just to enter the village after his one-time lover.

"Go on," Hikou said softly. The demon tried to keep his features impassive, but it was obvious even he was troubled by this twist in their path. "I'll be right behind you," he promised.

Hikou laid his hand over the monk's, catching Chichiri's fingers between Hikou's palm and the wood of the door.

He knew he had to open it. 

Together, they pushed the door open; Hikou's hand fell away from Chichiri's as the hinged creaked out their protest. He stepped back into the hall, allowing Chichiri his privacy with the man who had once saved his life, hoping that he would not damn his soul. 

Kenmin lay in his ruined, damp bed. A brazier was lit nearby to keep the chill from pervading the room. His jowls were pale, his flesh clammy even as Chichiri hurried over to clasp his hand and press his knuckles to the man's face to make sure he lived still.  

The touches roused the village headman, his eyelids slowly lifting to reveal bloodshot eyes. 

"Houjun-sama?" Kenmin rasped softly. 

"Hai, Kenmin-sama."

The older man's face broke out into a weak smile, and his hand lifted, only to be caught within Chichiri's.

"I am so glad you have made it to us," Kenmin said, his reedy voice colored with relief. "We had feared the worst, Houjun-sama. Are you alright? Why were you delayed?"

"I'm sorry," Chichiri answered, unable and unwilling to explain his entanglement with Hikou and the subsequent month as an invalid. "I tried to make it here on time, Kenmin-sama."

"It's alright," Kenmin reassured the troubled seishi. "You would simply have been caught in the flood with the rest of us. Its better you have come now." 

Chichiri looked down at the man, expression troubled and confused. "Why?"

"Because now you can bring my children back to me," Kenmin said, his voice cracking with the strain. "Kouran. My only child, Houjun-sama. You have to find her and her husband. Her child still lives, and he will need his family. They could be among the camps of the survivors."

Claw-like, Kenmin's bony hand tightened around Chichiri's, and the monk could only endure the clammy grip that held him still and tainted him with the chill of death. Desperation had taken Kenmin and drove him to begging, and Chichiri was obviously his only hope.

"Please, Houjun-sama," Kenmin pleased. "Find my daughter. Find Kouran."

Chichiri nodded, and answered with all the solemnity that the request warranted, "I will do as you ask, Kenmin-sama." 

Only then did Kenmin begin to relax. Chichiri's hands went to the thin, bony fingers that held his and he began to draw away from their cruel, cold grip. 

"Please," he said as he tried to take his hand from the older man, "rest now. I promise you I won't rest till I find Kouran."

"Search the mountains. If they escaped into the hills surrounding the peaks, they are likely there, alive and well..." Kenmin's voice was thin with his hope, the need for his daughter's safety achingly apparent. 

Chichiri understood all to well what it could be like to out live one's family. To out live a daughter would be that much worse.

Kenmin's needy eyes bore into his back as he left the man on his deathbed. A shiver ran down his spine, even before the door was closed.

Hikou had waited for him in the hall. His expression was somber as he Chichiri closed the door behind him. Once the monk looked up at him, Hikou spoke.

"To the hills, then?"

"Yes," Chichiri confirmed. "To the hills."

The demon only nodded, and turned to lead the way out. Guilt stung the seishi as he left the house, thankful to be free of the smell of disease and rot.

"It'll be hard," Hikou said as he walked through the village. "Do you really think you're up to trekking through the hills and into the mountains?"

Chichiri could hear that he meant well; his voice was colored with worry and concern, things that normally did not find their way into the demon's demeanor. But his answer would remain the same, no matter how much the demon might worry for him.

"I have to," he finally answered. "I have to find Kouran, Hikou. I owe her that much. Even if she's dead, I have to find her. Do you understand? She dragged me from this very river, half-dead and hopeless... and I owe her far more than my life. I have to find her, even if it's just to put her to rest."

"Baka," Hikou said softly, but there was no venom to his words. Only acceptance. 

"I know it's a fool's errand. But we both have acknowledged that I am a fool, yes?" Chichiri's smile was weak and hardly a reassurance. 

"Yes, we do," Hikou replied with weary resignation.

Words ceased between them as they left the village behind them, their grim mission laid out before them: Find a living daughter and bring her home, or find her corpse to widen the fissure that had all but broken Ou Kenmin's home.

Neither held hope, no matter that they both pressed onward.


	9. Grief And Suffering

(More Rampant Spoilers for Chichiri's gaiden novel, Shouryuu Den. This is a yaoi work, though there's no hot male-male action this time around. Sorry. ;D This chapter is Ranked A For Angst. You have been WARNED.)

**_Love Lies Bleeding_**

****

**_Memories are just where you laid them,_**

**_Dragging waters 'til the depths give up their dead._**

**_What did you expect to find?_**

**_Was it something you left behind?_**

**_Don't you remember everything I said when I said:_**

****

**_Don't fall away, and leave me to myself._**

**_Don't fall away, and leave love bleeding in my hands,_**

**_In my hands again;_**

**_Leave love bleeding in my hands._**

**_In my hands,_**

**_Love lies bleeding._**

****

**_'Hemorrhage (Love Lies Bleeding)', Fuel_**

****

****

Hikou had said he felt less fatigue than other men, just hours ago. But as he forced himself to hike up yet another rain-drenched slope, he realized he was weary beyond his bones. The very water that he was made from desired to simply lose form and let his body go. Then he could sink into the puddles and become one with them, resting in the damp. He wanted simply to let go, lie down within the earth, and sleep the sleep that only the dead could attain.

But he couldn't stop. He couldn't give in if the man before him, his only beloved, refused to rest. 

They'd been moving since they arrived here. Between the anguish of their arrival and the guilt that set in after they began to move, Hikou was not finding this easy. Thankfully, Houjun was too busy to notice.

Pushing ahead, the Suzaku shichiseishi pushed himself up the hill, step by step, till his feet slid in the mud and he was dumped unceremoniously on his knees. 

"Houjun!" Hikou cried out—-but it was useless. Houjun was going to go on until he lost consciousness, he was sure of it.

The monk pushed himself up, trousers splattered with mud and heavy with the muck.

"I'm all right," Houjun said.

"I'm sure," Hikou replied dryly. "But Houjun, there's a camp nearby. I can sense it. Can we stop there?" This need to pause was born of concern for his lover. It was a strange emotion, unpleasant in the extreme.

Demons were not supposed to really emote. Most of the time they were creatures of base needs; more complex things were left to higher creatures--gods and goddesses. But he had been forged from a human soul... And he felt this strange, human emotion.

And he hated it sometimes.

He waited there, as Houjun stood and caught his breath, leaning forward with his hands on his knees. Hikou was certain that Houjun was as winded as he, if not more so; as he bent and panted, one hand curled about Houjun's ribs, holding the bones that had recently mended protectively. 

"Please," Hikou urged.

"All right. We'll check this camp, and then rest a little bit," Houjun conceded wearily. "But only for a little bit."

Relieved by even that concession, Hikou moved with a new hope. They would soon sit down for a bit at the very least! All they had to do was get to the top of the hill, to the camp tucked on it. 

Carrion crows were their escort as the pair continued their march upwards. Hikou knew the birds well; they, like him, fed where others anguished and wailed. He had so far refused to taste of this sorrow spread out like a banquet for his senses. Houjun was here. These were the people that had taken care of him. They were important to him. Hikou could not feed on their pain. Not so much because it would be wrong, he told himself, but because it would hurt Houjun. 

He didn't want to hurt Houjun any more then he already had.

The urge grew harder to deny as they made their way into the stragglers' camp; oh, the suffering found here! Just as in the village: fear, pain, sorrow! So much to be had here, if Hikou would but reach out and take it.

It was ashes on his tongue, bitter and unfullfiling. 

Hikou simply reached out, as Houjun stopped before him, and steered him toward a lean-to. There were no fires to be enjoyed here: everything was soaked with water. But that did not stop him from forcing Houjun to sit down on the tattered blankets laid out over the damp earth.

Houjun grunted once as his backside made contact with the blanket, but Hikou simply said, "Rest. We will ask in a moment, about what's going on and what we can find here. Maybe they will know what else we can find."

Houjun sighed, trying to get the mud from his hands and failing. Realizing it was a losing battle, he simply let them settle in his lap, his head drooping. He radiated weariness like the campfire they so sorely desired might radiate heat.

Hikou was unsure of how to help him. Should he say something more? Touch him? Do something differently? He settled on the simplest, most familiar thing he knew, and eventually put his arm around his friend and lover.

Houjun needed him, he told himself. He would support him. He had to support him. This was his duty, at this moment.

Surprisingly, he found Houjun did not resist. Too tired to care about the casual and open display of affection, Houjun leaned into the demon's body. 

Houjun was, if possible, more tired than Hikou: his face was streaked with mud, his hands and feet stained brown with it. The stink of rotting wood and bodies left to simmer in the sun and rainwater broth was on his skin. He was miserable.

His misery was Hikou's misery.

"Stay a little while," Hikou murmured in Houjun's ear, his voice, soft steady drone. "Just sit here with me and regain your strength. You're too weak to push yourself any further, Houjun. So just sit here a time with me and rest."

Hikou's constant croon eventually lulled the monk into leaning against him, and once there, exhaustion overtook him and dragged him down to sleep. 

Hikou's body ached for release, to become one with this flood plain, but he did not rest. He simply shifted, lowering Houjun's weary body until he could rest against Hikou's lap. 

The demon's hands slid through Houjun's hair as Hikou bent his head to kiss the monk's brow.

"I'm sorry," Hikou murmured softly, his voice strangling on the final syllables. "So sorry."

But the demon did not allow himself the respite of weeping; he held on until he too was asleep sitting up, bent over his friend protectively. The sun dipped behind the mountains, trekking from East to West, vanishing somewhere among the sands of Sairou, on the other side of the world from the two tired men.

They were allowed a few scant hours of slumber, before a rude awakening brought them both to consciousness. 

"Shuusei-san!" 

A hand was on Hikou's shoulder, and it did not belong to Houjun. It was old and gnarled, and belonged to an aged woman, who was hunched over them both and trying to rouse him from his sleep. 

She was calling him by another name. He knew who it belonged to, and it made his heart sink. What did he say? He groggily mumbled, not making any real, coherent words, and feigned exhaustion. The woman, however, had words that roused them both from their slumber. 

"Shuusei-san! You must come see your wife! She is on the edge of death, Shuusei-san."

"My wife," Hikou repeatedly numbly, as sleep was torn from him with but a word. "My wife," he said again, his voice rising. "Oh, gods. Kouran."

To anyone else, it was the lamentation of a confused and sick husband over his wife, but in all honesty, it was a refusal. He did not want to see this woman. But the old hag who had brought both their terrible news AND woken them up was trying to drag both men to their feet with her claw-like hands on their flesh. 

Both men were forced to their feet by her insistence, and Hikou was who the woman dragged forward. Neither heard his desperate whisper as they walked; the woman ahead, Houjun behind.

"Yamero, Tenkou-sama," he murmured hoarsely, eyes widening with growing panic. "Yamero, onegaishimasu. Onegaishimasu. Kudasai. Yamero kudasai, Tenkou-sama. Onegaishimasu..."

Finally, he turned from the woman who held his wrist as surely as a manacle would, and reached for his lover. "Houjun, Houjun!" Hikou cried, and tried to jerk free. The woman yelped out in confusion as she found her grip tested with the demon's wild jerks and thrashing.

While Houjun could not truly fathom the terror that gripped his brother-turned-lover, he knew he had to do something or Hikou would suffer some sort of fit. Extending his hands to steady Hikou by his shoulders, Houjun looked up into the demon's panic-stricken gaze, and then brushed his hair back from his face, one hand going to the arm he kept trying to jerk from the grip of the bewildered hag. 

Confusion was writ across Houjun's face, but he could not simply leave Hikou as he was. Houjun was afraid if Hikou's fear was strong enough, he might hurt the woman to be free of her. He had to calm him, and quickly

"Saa, saa," Houjun murmured, as if he were calming a skittish stallion, ready to bolt from the bridle. "I'll take care of it." His hands continued to sooth the demon with gentle touches, stroking over his face, hair, until the frantic need to escape was eased away.

The woman looked on in confusion, till Houjun bent his head to her ear and whispered in it. It seemed to have the affect that Hikou desired; she released him as if he had suddenly grown too hot for her aging hands to handle.

Eyeing him suspiciously, the woman finally said, "May Suzaku be kinder then Seiryuu has been, monk. I fear for their souls." 

With only a warding gesture as her goodbye, she spirited away from the pair. Hikou looked briefly to Houjun, and then forward toward the tent they were being led to. 

"Is she...?"

"Yes," Houjun replied. "She's there. I can sense her now; her ki is dangerously low." He stood there a moment, eyeing the demon as Hikou began to calm, and said, "You don't have to go in. I will go alone."

Hikou relaxed visibly, and then dipped his head. Pathetically grateful, he could only hoarsely give his thanks. 

Houjun strode forward, and Hikou watched him move beyond beyond tent's flap. Hikou found he could not give Houjun any privacy; he knew that if something went wrong, the monk would need him. Stepping closer to the entryway, he listened to the private words between monk and his one-time savior, peering in through the gaps in the cloth that blocked the cold, wet air. 

Houjun knelt before the bedroll and the woman that lay wrapped in heavy, tattered blankets. He reached out to smooth her hair back from her brow, fingers coming away damp with her sweat. 

"Kouran?" Houjun said gently, causing her to rouse slowly from the rest that had her. 

She twisted on her bedroll, and then peered up at the face, her gaze blurred by fever. Eyes colored hazel, the one difference between Houjun's one-time beloved and the woman that laid before him, narrowed in confusion.

Relief flooded her face when she saw who it was. "Houjun," she murmured. "You are safe. We feared for you, when you did not come to us."

"I...was delayed," Houjun lamely explained, voice failing him. He could not explain that Hikou had beaten him, molested him, and then waited for him to heal.

"The gods kept you safe," Kouran corrected. "Safe from this flood." 

Hikou felt his hands clench as they spoke on, trying to swallow the bile that he knew could not be real. But still, he could not move from this tragic tableau presented to him, even as he refused to feed upon the pair's pain.

"The gods did not have anything to do with it, Kouran," Houjun said gently. "I wish I could have been here to aid you. But now, I must bring you home to your father, Kouran."

"My son," she interrupted. "My son is with my father?"

"Yes. But Shuusei--"

"Shuusei is dead," Kouran confirmed for the monk. "I saw him swept away, on the front lines of the barricade." She took a shuddering breath, reaching up for the monk, who gladly took her into his arms to cradle her gently against his chest.

"My son, my Houjun, he must have a father," Kouran said.

"And a mother," Houjun hastily added, even as he pulled her blankets tighter around her. "We must get you back to the village."

"No," Kouran said softly. "First, you must promise me, Houjun. Promise me you'll be the father to my son."

As another rattling breath was taken, Hikou turned from the pair and stalked a few steps away from the door. Her pain was palpable, her loss intoxicating. He could have supped on her and be satiated for months.

"No!" Houjun said abruptly. "No, Kouran! You must get well. You... Your heart will heal, as will your body. Your son will need you, Kouran!" His voice rose over her wheezing breaths like the cry of a hawk over the whisper of a breeze. He seemed intent on carrying her away, gathering her into his arms.

"Promise me, Houjun," Kouran insisted. "Promise me. Please, Gods, Promise me you will watch over him..."

Houjun paused in his motions, and looked into her wan, empty face. 

Hikou could feel the monk's resolve shatter in the face of his once-love's misery. He was not seeing Ou Kouran anymore. He was seeing another, begging him to care for her child.

"I will, Kouran," he finally said, his voice breaking. 

A calm smile split Kouran's cracked lips.

She seemed to settle against him peacefully. Her breath rattled in her lungs. Hikou counted them. 

There, Again.

And again.

And again.

And...

Nothing.

Hikou's eyes clenched shut as he felt the tether between body and soul snap, and her suffering was swept away. The gods opened heaven to her, he was sure, and peace was hers. 

Hollowness was left within him at her passing, and he could not explain why. He did not have time to contemplate it, though, for there was a new sound coming from the tent.

"Kouran? No, Kouran. You can't be dead. You can't be dead! I need you! You can't die too!"

Houjun. Houjun! 

Hikou turned, no longer afraid of the woman he knew was gone. He tossed back the tent flap and braved the interior only to find that his beloved was on the verge of a breakdown.

Houjun began to rock almost imperceptibly, with the now-empty vessel of his one-time friend, the woman he owed his life to. The monk's trembling hand fluttered over her face, delicately touching eyelids, nose, lips, seeking some tiny sign of life, denying the reality he held in his arms. 

Hikou slowly approached Houjun from behind, till he could kneel quietly down behind the monk, reaching out to settle his hands on Houjun's slowly moving shoulders. Hikou swallowed thickly, trying to think of what to say, what he could say. He knew there was no way he could truly ease this blow.

"Houjun," he began weakly, "She's gone, Houjun. Let her go. She's free of her suffering now." He knew. He felt it flee.

Houjun's tears fell freely, but as Hikou's fingers tightened on his shoulders, Houjun stopped his motions and became as still as the woman in his arms. But then he finally relaxed his grip upon her body, and almost reverently laid her body on the bed mat, compulsively tucking her in as if the cold still mattered to her.

Hikou's heart broke, watching Houjun's pathetic, wasted kindnesses.

"She's dead, Houjun," Hikou repeated; it was cruelty, but he could not stand to watch Houjun fuss over the woman's body. She was dead. She was free of suffering. He could not pity her any longer.

But he could pity Houjun as grief finally shattered his last remaining strength. He bent over her body, trembling hand covering where two eyes had once been.

"I know, I know," Houjun sobbed brokenly. "I failed her. Why couldn't I save her, Hikou? Why could I not save just one?" His shoulders began to shake with the force of held-back sobs under Hikou's hands, and he hiccoughed with his grief. 

"Just one!" he lamented to his lover, "Just one. Why couldn't I save just one?"

"It..." Hikou searched for the right words, but finally just gave in to rambling, unsure of what could ease his friends pain. "It's just fate, Houjun. Just stupid fucking fate. You couldn't change it if you tried!"

But it did nothing. Houjun only fell to incoherent sobbing then, and finally turned to grip Hikou's tunic tightly, as if he might anchor the demon to this existence.

Drawing him close to his chest, Hikou soothed him the best he could; his hand stroked over the monk's short hair, rubbed his back as he sobbed harshly. Grief reduced the Suzaku shichiseishi Chichiri to red-eyed weeping, and Hikou found he could not fault him for it.

Houjun cried miserably for hours, and finally succumbed to exhaustion shortly after. Hikou plucked him up in his arms, and carried his exhausted lover from the tent to another. Once he found an empty space, Hikou laid Houjun down in the safety of the shadows. The demon stayed by his side, holding Houjun against his chest as Houjun slipped into unconsciousness from grief and exhaustion. 

It was only then did Hikou allow himself his own pitiful sobs in the dark, nuzzling at Houjun's neck and murmuring against the monk's skin, "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry." His tears streaked his face even as he held tightly to his charge, and confessed in the darkness to ears that could not hear his sins.  "I was only doing what Tenkou-sama told me to do. I didn't know it was this village. I didn't know." 

The soft whimpers continued through the night, until the demon was equally emptied of strength, "I'm sorry. So very sorry, Houjun."


	10. First Major Lie

**Love Lies Bleeding**

**Memories are just where you laid them,**

**Dragging waters 'til the depths give up their dead.**

**What did you expect to find?**

**Was it something you left behind?**

**Don't you remember everything I said when I said:**

**Don't fall away, and leave me to myself.**

**Don't fall away, and leave love bleeding in my hands,**

**In my hands again;**

**Leave love bleeding in my hands.**

**In my hands,**

**Love lies bleeding.**

**'Hemorrhage (Love Lies Bleeding)', Fuel**

"Dammit."

The word had been uttered more then once, since they had left the ruins of the village where Houjun had once called home. The monk had, in the last few days, done more rites for the dead in a single village then he had the entire course of the Konan-Kutou 'war'. Its toll was obvious; emotional scars, physical weariness and constant reminders of loss. 

In fact, its largest reminder had just spat up messily all over Houjun's clean tunic. 

The squirming child, just a little over a year old, was fussy, unhappy, and sick. With a thatch of dark blue hair and honey-hued eyes, he would have been cute were he not frothy mouthed with whitish fluid, displaying that he'd just vomited up the gruel that Houjun had so painstakingly fed him just moments ago.

Houjun's brow furrowed.

The child's face contorted.

"Gods," Houjun breathed.

The child squealed and weakly flailed his arms, flushing purple as he struggled in the monk's arms. 

Hikou sat and watched it all with an odd detachment. He could not bring himself to be kind to the child, though he should for Houjun's sake. But neither could he sever the connection between monk and baby. He had burdened Chichiri with the need to take care of the child, if accidentally, by murdering his parents with the flood of their village.

It didn't help that the child, named for the monk who held him and quickly dubbed 'Hou-chan' to tell them apart, looked just like his father. His father had looked just like Hikou. 

But he couldn't watch the frustrated monk, near the point of tearing his short hair out at the roots, sit and be foiled by this squealing child. 

Hikou rose and moved over quietly, asking him gently, "Shall I take him? You can change and we can try again."

The child and his dinner were thrust gently into Hikou's arms as quickly as Houjun could manage. He quickly shed his soiled garment, and began to search for a clean shirt.

Hikou tore his eyes from the appreciated display of lean shoulders and smoothly rippling muscles, and forced them to fix on the child instead. 

The child was reaching for the spoon. 

"Does this mean you'll eat for me?" Hikou asked the wide-eyed child. "Well, then. Let's see, shall we?"

He sat down with Hou-chan on his knee as Houjun dug through his pack. He got some pasty gruel on the spoon, and wondered if he'd been forced to eat such as a young boy. Not dwelling on his thoughts, he presented the spoon of mush to the now greedily-open maw that belonged to Hou-chan. 

"I guess you will, then," Hikou mused, and got another spoonful, giving it to the formerly fussy child. "Don't you know you're supposed to be Houjun's kid now? You're certainly not mine."

Houjun glanced over as he tugged his tunic on, leaving it loose; there was no use in tucking it in and straightening it if the one year old was just going to soil it.

"He's not 'my kid'," Houjun finally said after watching Hikou shovel spoonful after spoonful of mush into Hou-chan's eager mouth. Digging in their packs, he looked for their waterskin. "I'm just his guardian now. There'll be no Ri's from me." 

Hikou gave a small snort, as he fed the child in his lap. "I think you're more then just a guardian, Houjun." But he looked up, holding the spoon just out of reach of Hou-chan's hands. With his best 'innocent' face he could manage put into place, he waited for Houjun to take a drink from the skin he'd collected. 

Then he asked, "Does that mean... you don't want to have children?"

Houjun choked, mid swallow, with the laughter that abruptly bubbled up at the thought of either of them bearing children. The water sprayed everywhere, and Houjun dropped the skin as he tried to laugh and choke at the same time. 

Hikou quietly smirked at the baby, relieved that something had brought a smile to the monk's face, even if it had nearly drowned him.

"That took me to a... a scary mental place, Hikou," Houjun finally breathed, wiping rivulets of water from his chin. "I mean, which one of us is going to be child bearing in this scenario, anyway? I'm not!"

Hikou snorted softly, and shoveled another spoonful of mush into Hou-chan's mouth. "Not me."

"Why not? You're the one who apparently wants them!" Houjun took his own turn at an innocent expression now, before adding, "I'm sure pregnancy would give you a glow you'd never had before, Hikou. And it might improve your disposition!"

Hikou endured the teasing until Houjun quieted, satisfied that he's gotten his dig in. However, after a few moments of feeding, Hikou realized that the monk was giving him the oddest inspection he'd ever been subject to.

"What?" the demon finally asked, bewildered. 

"Well, your hips, Hikou. They're terrible!" Houjun said, much to Hikou's confusion. The monk then elaborated. "And you're much to thin! We're going to have to work on you if you're going to be child bearing."

A bead of sweat formed at Hikou's temple, and one brow quivered. "Oi," he muttered. "You leave my hips outta this." As if to punctuate his threat, he waved the mush-loaded spoon in Houjun's direction.

It only made the monk laugh harder in the end. 

Satisfied both with the monk's laughter, and with the contented belch that followed a belly full of food from Hou-chan, Hikou set about wiping off the child's face with Houjun's dirty shirt.

"Hey!" 

"It's not like it's going to magically get cleaner just lying there, Houjun," Hikou said without concern. "And I didn't have a rag."

"Still!" The monk put his hands no his knees, shaking his head. "Saa. You'll fit in perfectly at the palace, with manners like that!" 

Hikou's brows furrowed. The plan formed after leaving Kenmin's village behind was to travel to Eiyou to accept the hospitality that had been extended to all seishi after the war with Kutou and the Summoning of Suzaku. However, reservations lingered within the heart of the demon. He was unsure of his ability to pretend to be human for so long.

"What are we going to do, anyway, when we get there?" Hikou asked, as he finally eased the clean-faced baby down to his feet, allowing him to wobble about. The child could walk, if clumsily, and apparently felt more confident for Hikou's presence as he broke away to wobble toward Chichiri with his arms out stretched.

"Well," Houjun began, as he extended his hands to the child, "First we'll explain that I am your sempai, and you are my kohai. And then we'll arrange for a suite in the seishi compound, and have a brief audience with Houki-sama."

Hikou's brows arched upward, as he mouthed the word 'sempai'.

Houjun continued as Hou-chan's tiny hands found the monk's larger palms, "Then we'll settle into a routine. As a journeyman under me, you'll have free rein to be as odd as you like, and your otherworldly talents will have a suitable explanation." 

Houjun grinned once he finished with his explanation. "How does that sound for my first major lie?" 

"Sempai," Hikou said "Do I get to follow you about and call you Chichiri-sempai?"

"Am I going to be able to call you kohai?"

"I don't see why not," Hikou replied. The turnabout was amusing; it was obvious to him that he was in control of their relationship, yet for this masquerade, he'd have to be obedient to his submissive partner. There was a warming irony to it.

Houjun picked up Hou-chan, and then asked, "Shall we be off again?"

"Hai," Hikou replied. "Shall I take care of your pack, since you have the wriggling little dragon?"

"If you wish," Houjun said, as he tried to wrestle Hou-chan into the sling that held him to the monk's chest while they traveled. 

A few minutes of struggle later, they returned to the road. Eiyou, its palace and the comforts it promised, beckoned.


End file.
